


The Story of Light

by bunnoculars



Category: SHINee
Genre: Coming of Age, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2020-12-24 14:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 131,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21101123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars
Summary: Spring 2005: Taemin begins training at SM Entertainment in the hopes of debuting. Even as he puts everything he has into making his dream come true, he has no way to prepare for the shape his future will take, from the things he’ll have to sacrifice along the way to the four people he’ll share his life with, to the realities of being an idol and his own unrealized potential as an artist. He’s not prepared, either, for his first and last love to be that one hyung from his dance class.Alternatively: Shinee through the years, from spring 2005 to winter 2017.





	1. Trainee

**Author's Note:**

> Will update as I write. Updates may be slow and/or sporadic, and I will take breaks at points to write other things. Knowing me, I expect the chapters will start getting longer as Taemin gets older, and the chapter count may fluctuate a little bit as well. Beyond the Shinee members, I will try to tag important characters as they show up.
> 
> I thought I should say this just in case - my outline for this fic does cover Move and Poet | Artist. Up till now I’ve avoided writing about 2017, but I am a huge fan of both albums (and Move era Taemin!), and that’s what fanfic is here for. I won’t write about Jonghyun’s death, and I don’t intend to speculate about his real life mental state. That being said, depression is something I have struggled with all my life, and honestly it’s a big part of why I identify with Jonghyun. He was my bias from the beginning, but in later years, reading translations of Blue Night, connecting with his lyrics, his honesty about his own struggles made me feel less alone. I can’t ignore that part of him. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m not great at writing happy fic, but I won’t write a tragedy, either. There’s enough of that in real life.
> 
> I also wanted to say that Taemin’s and Jonghyun’s families in this fic are just fictional OC’s, and I’ve given them different names from their real life counterparts to reflect that. Since Jonghyun’s absent father and his closeness with his mom and sister played a huge part in forming his character irl, in addition to playing a huge part in how I’ve characterized him up to now, I have tried to echo his real life family dynamics. That being said, I know next to nothing about any of their family members’ personalities, careers, or private lives, and for the purposes of this fic, I’m just making all these things up.
> 
> This is going to end up longer than this chapter haha, but very quickly, the rating will go up for sexual content at some point. It’ll take so long to get there, though, that I thought it would be less misleading to start at T.

It’s raining.

Shit.

When Taemin woke up this morning the sky was blue. As he sat and stared out the window during class it grew grey. Standing around at the bus stop he reached out and caught the first few drops in his palm, and when he got off at the subway station it was as dark as it would have been a month ago, back when Taemin was still going to hagwon instead of coming here, before the days started getting longer. And now, right on time for him to go and get lost for the sixth time, this.

People push past Taemin on all sides, heading for the exit, heels clicking, cell phones pressed to their ears, umbrellas snapping open, and from behind him the train whooshes to life. It was late today. Taemin is going to be too if he doesn’t hurry up. He takes the stairs two at a time and takes that first step into Gangnam. The street is busier than the station, somehow. Crazier.

Worse.

When Taemin came for his audition his mom took him. She offered to take him all this week, too, meet him in front of his school, steal Dad’s car from his work, whatever it took until he got used to it, but then he’d just get lost all next week instead. That was what he told her. What he didn’t is that he’d rather die than be the kid who shows up holding his mom’s hand everyday. He’s already the kid who can’t talk, the kid who’s still in elementary school, the only kid in the entire program who was born in 93. The kid who is going to be late, because the building is not where it was supposed to be. Taemin passed that mall a few blocks back. He was supposed to turn left there, then go straight, which is exactly what he did. Right?

_Shit._

Taemin is still learning to say that word out loud, but it rings through his head. Shit, shit, shit. He has to get it out, he has to think. He retreats under the shelter of the nearest bus stop, escaping the crush of people for just a second. With his eyes squeezed shut tight he can just barely make out the sound of rain over the sounds of the city, pelting the glass over his head, dripping from his bangs, making his shoes squeak, and then a bus splashes to a stop, spraying Taemin with water as its door sighs open. The lady standing next to him smiles at him and tells him to go ahead of her, the bus driver calls for him to hurry up, and Taemin can’t think like this, and he has to _think._

“Do you know where SM is?” he blurts out. His insides flip over, but it’s too late, he said it. “I have to get to SM. SM Entertainment.”

He might not be for much longer, though, since she can’t tell him. Just as he’s about to turn away, step out into that street again, the bus driver calls after him, “You mean the training center?”

Taemin spins back around, heart shooting skyward. Except it gets stuck in his throat and he has to hurry up and get words out around it, somehow.

“I’m a trainee.”

He was supposed to turn left back at the mall. He must have gotten it confused with his right, probably because he’s useless. As he runs the raindrops sting his skin and the buildings close in around him and there are people in his way everywhere he turns, and he can’t breathe, he’s going to have to walk, he won’t make it—but he’s here. He’s here. He made it.

Taemin catches his reflection’s eyes as he pushes his way through the glass double doors and into the lobby, and somehow he looks even worse than he feels. Whatever. Stomach churning, hot and cold all over, he skids his way across the lobby and takes the stairs two at a time, at least until he slips and bangs his knee on the edge of the next one. Somehow that knocks every thought out of his head that’s not _you’re late you’re late you’re late._ Taemin picks himself up. When he reaches the second floor landing it’s left or right again.

…Left? No, right. Right, right, right. Past that bulletin board plastered with audition flyers. It’s only ten doors down, but Taemin’s breathing stabbing into his side by the time he’s reaching for the handle.

As the door swings open Taemin goes numb with relief, because they’re still on stretches, before the dance instructor calls, “Late,” and Taemin’s stomach curls up, tight as a fist. Tighter, when the instructor turns to see who it is and his face softens. “Taemin-ah. Did you get lost on your way here?”

_I’m not a baby. Yell at me the way you’d yell at the others._ And yet, it’s so hard for Taemin just to keep his head up, and all he can get out is, “Mm.”

Some of the hyungs laugh and the instructor smiles, petting Taemin’s head, fingers slipping through his wet hair. “Go on and change. Quickly.”

What? _Shit._ Taemin needs a new word. His backpack is lighter than air all of the sudden, no lump digging into his back where it should be, which means no sweats squashed beneath his textbooks.

“Ssaem,” he starts up, dragging his eyes from the floor at their feet, words jamming up in his throat. “I left my gym clothes at school.” Does he sound like he’s whining? “I’m fine like this.”

“You say that now, wait till you catch cold. Borrow from a hyung or call home, okay? Don’t take too long, or you’ll miss the important stuff.”

Ssaem claps Taemin on the back and turns away to the rest of the class, leaving Taemin rooted to the floor. He can’t even remember his name, let alone the names of any of the hyungs, and now he’s supposed to be asking them for things? There are only fifteen of them, so it’s not like it is at school, he can’t go hide in the back and hope the instructor forgets he exists, or that the music is loud enough that Taemin’s wet shoes squeaking across the floor won’t remind him. And if he goes and asks his mom he’ll be that kid he’s trying so hard not to be.

Taemin sneaks a glance at the hyungs sprawled across the floor and braced against the wall, joking and laughing amongst themselves. None of them catch him looking, not until Taemin’s eyes land on the only hyung whose face he knows, where he’s leaning back on his hands, sitting cross-legged on the floor while everyone else around him is busy stretching. That hyung meets them dead on.

In Taemin’s head he has a name, too. The day they took Taemin around the training center, he saw him in the practice room. His whole life, he’d never heard anyone sing like that, and it took this whole week of searching the Internet, plus his brother’s Korean-English dictionary, to find that song again. “Incomplete” by Sisqo.

Outside Taemin’s head, Incomplete hyung is already climbing to his feet. Did he hear? Taemin hates his life. No, he hates himself. It’s his fault he sucks, he can take responsibility for that much.

Before Taemin can even move, cut his gaze away, give up and go borrow the phone in the lobby, Incomplete hyung says his name. “Taemin-ah. Taemin-ah, come here.” He grabs Taemin’s wrist, drawing him to the back of the room. His hand is big and warm and a little sweaty, and that’s about all Taemin knows until Incomplete hyung lets him go to fiddle with his locker, and it’s safe to look again. Or not. Incomplete hyung sighs at him, “You weren’t going to say anything if none of us did, were you. Aigoo,” reaching up to pinch Taemin’s cheek. Even if Taemin’s muscles were working he’d have to stand there and let him do it anyway. It hurts a lot less than the bundle of clothes Incomplete hyung presses into Taemin’s hands, the way Incomplete hyung is looking down at him, the tone he takes when he says, “Start keeping clothes here, okay?”

Taemin is thirteen, not five. He forgot his stuff, he didn’t forget that he needed it, and it’s not like he meant to. Except saying any of that out loud is what a child would do, so Taemin swallows it and says, “Thank you,” instead. It takes him by surprise, how much he means it.

“No problem,” Incomplete hyung says. “You remember where the bathroom is, right?”

No, but Taemin can figure that much out on his own. He half-nods, half-bows, and makes for the door. He gets halfway down the hallway and—

“Other way, Taemin-ah.”

When Taemin turns around Incomplete hyung is waiting for him. His face is still burning as he walks back up to him, but Incomplete hyung doesn’t take hold of his wrist again, just leads the way and trusts Taemin to follow. Which he does. With each step he takes his shoes squelch and his socks feel damper, his wet clothes heavier, clinging to him like a second skin.

“I got lost my first week, too,” Incomplete hyung tells him.

“I do every day,” Taemin can’t stop himself from admitting, before he hears how it sounds and adds quickly, “Not on the way to the bathroom, on the way here. It’s just the first time I was late because of it.”

Incomplete hyung nods, trying and failing to hide a smile that ends up sitting on Taemin's chest. But he's not making fun of him when he says, “Gangnam is scary. I’d never even been here before my audition. You either, huh.”

“Mm.”

When Taemin sneaks a glance at him as he shoulders open the bathroom door, he finds Incomplete hyung watching him, this weird half-smile lingering on his face. “How old are you, anyway?”

Like he doesn’t know? They all do. All the stalls are open so Taemin makes for the first one. With the door latched between them, somehow it feels safe to answer with a question. “What about you?” 

“Older than you,” Incomplete hyung retorts, but it’s probably okay, since he’s laughing. “Sixteen.”

Last year of middle school. Taemin thought he was older.

“I’m thirteen.”

Last year of elementary, but Taemin’s not going to do the math for Incomplete hyung. Incomplete hyung just laughs again, anyway, sharper than before. His voice sounds so different from when he’s singing, but also the same somehow. “And you’re already this good?”

Taemin’s stomach squeezes in on itself, and now that he’s peeled off his clothes, Incomplete hyung’s swallow him up, too big. Taemin only has three years to grow this much. In the meantime he rolls the sleeves up over his hands and gets out, “At dancing,” while there’s still a door between them.

“You say that like it’s nothing,” Incomplete hyung says, like he’s read Taemin’s mind. Taemin freezes up, hand on the latch, before he tells himself he’s being stupid and steps out into the open again. Incomplete hyung pushes off the wall. “When I auditioned, I just clapped for the dance part.” Incomplete hyung smiles down at him, nudging him as they pass into the hall again. “This is where you’re supposed to say, ‘and you passed?!’”

How could Taemin, when he didn’t even sing for his.

“I heard you in the practice room, on my first day,” Taemin blurts out. “You’re really good.”

Incomplete hyung’s expression shifts ever so slightly. Taemin doesn’t watch his smile fade, too busy staring at his feet and waiting out the stupid tingly heat in his ears. He just said the truth, what’s the point in getting embarrassed about that?

Incomplete hyung nudges him again. “How come you were late today?”

“I got lost,” Taemin reminds him.

“Do you think hyung is stupid or something?” Incomplete hyung laughs at the look that puts on Taemin’s face. Taemin is just glad he can’t see it himself. “You also said you always do, so I figured it was something else.”

“Cleaning after school.” Bathrooms. Half the kids who were supposed to do it with him ditched, too, since it’s Saturday. “The train was late, too.”

And now Incomplete hyung is late, thanks to him, even if the instructor won’t care, and he doesn’t look like he does either. But that’s the practice room door, already. Just a few more steps and Incomplete hyung can forget that Taemin exists, and Taemin can try really hard to do that too.

Incomplete hyung reaches for the handle first, laying his hand over it and catching Taemin’s eye. “Sometimes new kids stop showing up, is all.”

“Can you do that after they make you sign?” Taemin says, bewildered. But who cares if you can or not anyway. Taemin definitely doesn’t. “You really thought I would quit?”

Incomplete hyung frowns at him like Taemin is being stupid on purpose and corrects him, “I didn’t think, I was worried.” This time when he goes to pinch Taemin’s cheek, Taemin shies away on instinct, so he scrubs his hand through Taemin’s hair instead. It’s almost dry. “For nothing, I guess.”

Taemin hesitates, unsure how to say this, but he kind of has to. “I’m not how I look, hyung.”

Incomplete hyung’s frown crooks into something so close to a smile. “You know how to talk, too, that’s good.”

Did he really think Taemin didn’t?

“I never have anything to say,” Taemin begins haltingly.

That’s as far as he gets before Incomplete hyung adds, “And how to talk back. You’re lucky you’re so cute.” He pets Taemin’s head again. “Don’t worry about returning them today. Just don’t forget next time, or else I won’t be able to save you. They’re all I had.”

“Hyung.” Taemin’s hand shoots out on its own, fingers hooking into Incomplete hyung’s sleeve before he can open the door. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Incomplete hyung says, so easily. “You won’t even be able to forget when you get to middle school and you have to start wearing a uniform. It’s no good dancing in that.”

One last smile, another pat on his head Taemin doesn’t try to duck, and then they walk into the music, and Taemin can forget his ears were ever burning or that he was soaked to the skin, all the homework in his backpack he has to fit in tonight somehow, the hands on the clock. Each beat is like his heartbeat, and his whole world narrows down to the song, the lines the dance instructor’s body makes, the way it feels to make them for himself, to _move._ Finally, the one thing in his entire life he’s good at. His whole day led up to this. Some days it feels like his whole life has.

The next morning there isn’t a single cloud in the sky. Taemin could have slept all day but for the sun shining through his window, but now that he’s outside on the balcony of their apartment, it’s nice. The soapy water lapping at his ankles is too, cool and refreshing. His mom told him he wasn’t heavy enough to be any use helping with the laundry, but she always says that kind of stuff whenever she wants him to do something. Taemin doesn’t know how to tell her that she doesn’t need to, except by doing his best to stomp last week out of their clothes. He’s not about to tell her how fun it is either, though, in case she just gets him up next time.

“How was school yesterday?” Mom asks him from across the balcony, pinning the first batch of clothes up to dry. “You never said.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t want to say?” Mom guesses, pausing to shoot him a frown that’s this close to being a pout. “Taewoo still talked to me when he was this age. Let Mom have at least one more year. Just one. Hm?”

It’s not Taemin’s fault he has nothing to say. “It was okay. It was boring.”

“Including gym class?” Mom presses him. It’s only his favorite class now because he doesn’t hate it, but he used to love it. Mom comes over to check his progress, kneeling by the red plastic tub he’s standing in, tickling at his feet to get him off the laundry beneath. “I never liked it,” she tells him. “I sat next to a boy I liked and I was scared if I sweat at all I’d come back to the classroom smelling bad.”

“I don’t like anyone,” Taemin blurts out.

Mom wrinkles her nose at him. “I wasn’t asking.” She hesitates. “You don’t miss going to hagwon?”

“It’s not that,” Taemin says quickly, because it’s really not. He feels even stupider than he did before without five extra hours of tutoring, and the test he got back this week pretty much confirmed it, and every week from now on he’s just going to fall further behind…but dancing is more useful than math, anyway. At least to him it is. What Taemin misses is eating tteokbokki with his friends after school, that beautiful half hour of freedom in between school and tutoring. He misses riding the train with them on the way there and walking as far as the subway together on the way home. He misses being in on all the jokes they tell the next day.

“My friends said a girl asked about me when I stopped showing up,” Taemin remembers suddenly. “They said she cried. I didn’t even know she liked me.”

“You wouldn’t.” Mom leans up to pinch his cheek, before turning to the pile of clothes left to be washed. She shoots him another glance as she sorts through them. “You like training better, though, right?”

“Mm.”

She makes a face at him. “You don’t sound convinced. You can always quit if it gets too hard. Mom will understand.”

What is she even talking about? He would rather die. “I’m not going to quit.”

“If you say so~”

“I don’t care how hard it gets, I won’t,” Taemin insists. “I can do it.”

“I know you can,” Mom tells him, like that much is obvious. “As long as you do too.”

She shoots him a smile.

For the first time all day it’s easy for Taemin to return it. “It’ll probably get easier, anyway. Right? Once I get used to it.”

“Knowing you, it’ll get harder. You’ll push yourself harder.” Mom holds a T-shirt aloft. Incomplete hyung’s. In the time it takes Taemin to recognize it, she frowns and asks, “Is this your brother’s? I don’t remember buying him anything like this,” and then he’s sloshed forward and snatched it away from her.

“It’s mine,” he says stupidly. 

She narrows her eyes at him, that look she gets when she’s caught him in a stupid lie and she’s trying to figure out how telling the truth could possibly be worse for him. “Funny how I don’t remember buying it for you, either, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin plants one foot on the cement, rooting around in the pile of clothes for Incomplete hyung’s track pants, heaving them into the tub. Retreating into the water he leaves a wet footprint behind on the cement, and stepping on the evidence doesn’t make it disappear. Which, he’s being so weird. What does it matter if he got lost on the way to SM, what does it matter if he had to ask for help? It’s just Mom. Even when he’s twenty-five—even when he’s fifty—he’ll still be a baby to her. At least that's what she's told him.

“I need to start keeping clothes in my locker at the training center,” Taemin says to her face. Then, dragging his foot through the water and watching suds swirl behind it, “I got caught in the rain so I had to borrow these from a hyung.”

“Does he have a name?” is all Mom wants to know. She reads the answer in Taemin’s face and shakes her head. “Aigoo. Make sure you get it when you thank him.”

Taemin’s stomach lurches. He’d forgotten about that part. “Could you fold them? If I do it they’ll end up weird.”

“They’ll end up weird in your backpack anyway.”

“Mom~”

She laughs, even though it’s not funny. “Tell me his name too when you find out. I only know your school friends.”

Before Taemin can even think he’s saying, “He’s not my friend, Mom, he’s older than Taewoo hyung. We don’t even talk to each other.”

“Now I really want to know the name of the boy nice enough to help a dongsaeng who won’t even talk to him~”

“That’s not what I said at all.”

Mom laughs again, pinching his cheek as she climbs to her feet and heaves the batch of laundry Taemin just finished over to the clothesline.

_I have no friends there._

That’s not what Taemin said, either.

_He thought I would quit. You know I won’t, right? You were just trying to get me to tell you that I won’t. Right? You wanted me to tell myself._

Or any of that.

If Taemin closes his eyes, the song from yesterday comes back to him, not just in his head. In his body. Incomplete hyung’s stuff squelches under his feet with each move he tries, and when he spins, he just barely catches his balance, sending water spraying everywhere, including the back of Mom’s shirt.

She just gives him another smile. Taemin smiles back.

Taemin’s second week starts the same as his first one did—rolled up in his blanket with his face smashed into his pillow, hating life. No one ever wants to get up on Monday, though, so that’s nothing new. School drags until it doesn’t, and the bus and the train are both on time. He remembers his right and left this time, and the training center is right where he left it on Saturday night. Taemin’s stomach isn’t. Incomplete hyung’s clothes ate right through it by the time lunch period rolled around, even squished into the bottom of Taemin’s backpack and hidden in his cubby at the back of the classroom.

He doesn’t even have to say anything. Just thank you. If Mom asks him again he can just make up a name or tell her what she should already know, that she’ll never meet Incomplete hyung anyway and she doesn’t need to know, and you can’t be friends with someone three years older than you, and.

Taemin’s feet have already carried him all the way up to the practice room, and when he pushes the door open—

“Hyung,” he blurts out.

There are like five of them here already, but only Incomplete hyung looks up from where he’s sitting against the wall.

“You’re early again today.”

He pats the spot on the floor next to him. It’s easier just to obey and sink down next to Incomplete hyung, and then who cares if his legs are like jelly, folded underneath him. Actually, Taemin does. He’s going to need them in another five minutes when Ssaem shows up and practice starts. Taemin shrugs out of his backpack, struggling with the straps for one horrible moment, but then he’s free, and his books are on the floor, and he’s pressing Incomplete hyung’s clothes into his hands. Okay. He didn’t forget and he did it, and now it’s done and he’s okay.

Except there’s this weird smile splitting Incomplete hyung’s face now, almost like he wants to laugh. “You washed them and everything?”

“My mom did.” Well, Taemin did. Kinda. It’s definitely not lying if Taemin adds, “I helped.”

“Aigoo. Thank you.”

“What for?” It would have been bad if Taemin hadn’t done it, especially considering, “I sweat a lot when I practice.”

Incomplete hyung laughs, reaching over to pet Taemin’s hair. Taemin just lets him do it, already so used to it somehow. “Has anyone ever told you you’re weird?”

Lots of people. Taewoo hyung did yesterday when Taemin picked the cucumber out of his food. His friends do every time he walks somewhere with them and practices dance steps along the way. The girl he liked in first grade told him he was when she saw him eat an ant at recess, even though she was the one who liked to eat crayons.

“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, Taemin-ah,” Incomplete hyung tells him, even though Taemin never even admitted anything. “It’s not, not to me at least.”

Taemin’s calves are going numb. He should stretch them out or get up, or something. “Is it a good thing, then?”

Incomplete hyung nods. Smiles at the look on Taemin’s face. “To me.”

“What’s your name?”

It just pops out of Taemin’s mouth, and then he’s stuck, frozen in place as Incomplete hyung’s eyes narrow. But all he says to Taemin is, “What’s your name, hyung.”

“What’s your name, hyung?”

Taemin barely finishes when he gets corrected again: “Jonghyun hyung.”

_Jonghyun._

There was a kid in Taemin’s class named that for like a month, but he transferred before the snow even started to melt. Now the cherry blossoms are out and Taemin’s mom never makes him wear a jacket, and Incomplete—Jonghyun hyung is sitting here in front of him. And somehow it’s Taemin’s turn to talk. Jonghyun said he thought Taemin couldn’t, before.

“What’s your name, Jonghyun hyung,” Taemin tries. It’s a joke. It’s supposed to be. Shit. That was so weird, he’s so weird, and who cares if Jonghyun doesn’t think it’s bad, when Taemin does, and—

Jonghyun laughs like he’s supposed to. Eyes crinkling up, white teeth, hand reaching out to pinch Taemin’s cheek, a little too hard, but it’s okay, he’s laughing. Taemin can breathe. And when Jonghyun can talk again he tells Taemin, “Kim Jonghyun.”

Should Taemin tell him too, is that how this works? He obviously knows the Taemin part, but, “Lee Taemin.”

“I know already,” Jonghyun says. He smiles again. “It’s not because I’m good with names, either. I saw you, too. Dancing.”

“In class?”

Where else? But Jonghyun shakes his head. “One of the days you were early. I asked Ssaem about you, and when he told me how old you were I wanted to jump off the roof.”

“You asked me that last time, though.”

Taemin’s just pointing it out, but Jonghyun makes a face at him. Taemin’s still trying to read it when he says, “I just picked the easiest question I could think of so that you’d have to answer me. You don’t know how hard it is to get you to crack. That was the first time I heard your voice, even.”

Even if they don’t talk again after this, Taemin will never forget the first time he heard Jonghyun’s.

“I can’t sing,” comes out of Taemin’s mouth, somehow. “They said I’m too young to take lessons.”

“You’ll get older,” Jonghyun assures him, but all Taemin hears is, _You might have to waste years without getting anywhere._ Jonghyun narrows his eyes at him again. “What, were you planning on debuting this year or something?” When he nudges Taemin he knocks a smile out of him, totally without his permission. “Do you think thirteen is already too old?”

That’s not what Taemin was saying, not at all. Jonghyun is being stupid on purpose. Maybe Taemin should be stupider, tell him that sixteen is, and Jonghyun might laugh again. But the class is staggering to their feet around them, and somehow Taemin missed Ssaem walking in, and the moment passes like that. Taemin climbs to his feet instead of opening his mouth, watching as Jonghyun follows suit. It seems weird to say goodbye now, so Taemin nods at him and turns to find a good spot. He gets maybe two steps before Jonghyun’s fingers close around his wrist.

“Not up front,” he insists, pulling Taemin back, “you can see fine from the middle, come on.”

He didn’t have to drag Taemin over here. He could have just said—or asked—and Taemin would still have come, and he’d still be right here. When he turns to face the wall of mirrors at the front of the room, he catches himself smiling. His reflection looks right back at him.

_You can do this, Taemin-ah._

Even if he can’t, today still counts as a good day.


	2. Summer

After spending one last day shut up in school, the sun almost blinds Taemin as he steps out onto the sidewalk. He used to spend hours and hours with it shining on him, but these past few months, he goes to school, then goes to practice, then goes home to eat and sleep when he probably should be studying, and then gets up and goes to school again. Except somehow their midterms are already over, whether Taemin failed them all or not, and July has come.

Summer break.

For days, that’s all his friends have talked about. Taemin likes that better than who kicked whose ass at Smash Brothers Melee over the weekend, what it would take to bribe Minhyuk’s noona to rent _Bittersweet Life_ for them tonight, which two girls got caught making out with each other in the bathroom at hagwon yesterday. It’s just, he still has nothing to say.

“Should we stop for ice cream now or after?” Jaeseok asks the group.

After hagwon, he means. After they all get out.

“Later,” Dongil replies immediately. “It’ll taste better after we’re free.”

It’s not like now is any good, either, because that’s Taemin’s bus stop on the corner. He adjusts the straps of his backpack. There’s barely anything in it, just books from the classes where his teachers were evil enough to assign homework. If he’s lucky he’ll get it done on the last day of break, same as every year. If he’s unlucky, he’ll forget about it until the morning after that and end up trying to cram it in on the bus to school.

It’s just school. And today is just today, same as every other day Taemin peels off from the group here and watches them round the corner and disappear. The first few times, they waited with him for his bus to come, and Dongil asked him fifty times if he was sure it was the right one. Then Taemin started saying goodbye. _See you guys. Have fun studying~. I have a test today, too, they’re evaluating us. You want to see what I learned yesterday? Really quick. I don’t know if I can hang out this weekend, I have some stuff to work on. I’ll call you when I finish, if it’s not too late. If I remember~_

Today, only Minhyuk hesitates, scratching his head and squinting into Taemin’s face.

“What time do you finish?” he says. Dongil elbows Minhyuk, and then he’s adding all in a rush, “They said they’d let us out early today.”

“I don’t know,” is all Taemin can tell them. “It’s not like it is with school.”

“You actually want to be there?” Jaeseok says, only for Dongil to elbow him again. Before Taemin can tell them it’s not that, before he can even figure out what it is—

“See you, Taemin-ah,” Dongil says. 

Taemin adjusts his backpack again, sun so warm on his shoulders. “See you.”

“Have fun. Don’t work too hard.”

“I might call you,” Minhyuk tells him, and for one last second his eyes linger on Taemin’s face. Somehow they weigh more than Taemin’s backpack, the test they took this morning, the day ahead of him, the sleep didn’t get last night and the time he’ll spend lying awake in bed tonight, all that. But it’s just that one second, and then he turns to catch up with the other two. Taemin stays right where he is. His eyes probably don’t weigh anything to them.

“Let’s just go before. It’s so fucking hot out, I’m already sweating.”

“It’s supposed to get up to 90 today.”

_“Seriously?_ Fuck.”

Taemin’s still stuck on ‘shit.’ Looks like he got behind.

Taemin’s alarm doesn’t go off, but his body wakes him up anyway. For a while he just lays there, sunlight already streaming in through his window, but he still gets up in time to beat Taewoo to the shower.

“What are you doing today, Taewoo-yah?” Mom says over breakfast.

Taewoo grunts that one grunt that means _I don’t know,_ bent low over his bowl. It’s way too hot for seaweed soup, but there’s so much left over from Taemin’s birthday, and anyway, the window unit has yet to crap out since they put it in last month. Taemin’s seat is right in front of it, cold cold air prickling his hair, like ice down his spine. Taewoo sits right across from him, but he always complains that Taemin blocks it, in that voice that means he really doesn’t care. Maybe Taemin should suggest they switch who’s hyung and who’s dongsaeng, since Taemin is ten times better at bullying him.

Mom nudges Taemin. “Maybe if you ask nicely your brother could take you to get ice cream~”

_Should we stop for ice cream now or later? Later. It’ll taste better after we’re free._

“I have training.”

Mom narrows her eyes at Taemin. “That’s not what the program director said.”

Taemin freezes with his spoon halfway up to his mouth, stomach opening up. “He called here?”

“Mom called him,” she corrects him immediately, and just like that, it’s safe to eat again. When he swallows his food will have somewhere to go. Mom clicks her tongue at him, picking rice off his cheek. “He said your schedule is the same as when you’re still in school. I can take you later, when it’s time.”

She could. And then Taemin could hang around all morning, watching the music shows while Mom sings along to songs she only knows half the words to, and if he gets up to dance, she’ll laugh and swat at him, tell him to stop blocking her view. The phone might ring and it might be for him, and there’ll be nothing stopping Taemin from picking it up and calling first.

“Are you trying to ditch me for your friends?” Taewoo says from a million miles off. “Guess hyung isn’t cool enough to hang out with you guys~.”

“I embarrass him, too,” Mom adds.

Dad smiles at the wide-eyed look she gives him, which Taemin can see too, and see right through, but Dad still says it. “And me.”

“Take Taewoo with you, Taeminnie,” Mom tells him, like that settles it. “I’ll give him enough to pay for everyone.”

The doors to the training center should open at eight. It’s already seven forty-five.

Taemin crams the last of his rice into his mouth and pushes his chair back from the table, climbing to his feet. “They already had ice cream yesterday.”

Dad and Mom exchange Looks again, but before Taemin can squeeze past her Dad says, “I’ll drive you.”

If Taemin were five or something, he would run and get his shoes on, but he’s not, so he hesitates instead. Wouldn’t he make Dad late? The office he works in isn’t anywhere close to Gangnam.

“I can just take the train, I’m used to it now,” Taemin makes himself say. He has a whole hour of public transportation ahead to regret it. It might already be hot enough that his skin will stick to the bus seats, and he’ll probably hit rush hour on the subway, and by the time he reaches the training center he’ll be as sweaty and gross as he usually is coming home, and.

Dad is getting to his feet, though. “It’s okay, the whole office went out drinking last night, which means my boss won’t get in until nine or ten.” He smiles at Taemin. “You can show me around, how about that? Dad hasn’t been to visit yet.”

That’s worse. That’s so much worse. Taemin will go back to being crushed to death on the subway. Before he can even think, he’s saying, “There’s nothing to see, though. All the rooms are the same, and there are lots of them.”

Dad’s smile widens as he looks past Taemin to the other two. “Do you think they’d let me sing into the mic?”

_They won’t even let me._

Taewoo smirks. “Maybe you should audition. Seo Taiji is an ahjussi now and he’s still releasing stuff.” 

“Wouldn’t that be nice, Taemin-ah~? Being in the same company as your dad.”

Taemin is so far from laughing, because this is even further from funny, but he can’t get mad either, or else that’s it. Even if there’s some tiny part of them that’s the tiniest bit serious about this, he can’t even try to squash it, or they’ll never let it go, and before he knows it, his life will be a joke. 

Dad’s eyes twinkle down at him like he knows everything Taemin is thinking. “You never know. I could be the next Cloud.”

“Rain, Dad,” Taemin corrects him loudly. Their laughter follows him to the entryway, and he can’t get his own stupid smile off his face until the door slams behind him and the stairs fly under his feet and the sun glares down at him, and finally the lock on his dad’s car door clicks open.

Usually his day doesn’t even start until three in the afternoon. Today will start when it’s supposed to, at the beginning. 

The sun has been setting later and later, but Taemin still has to go home at the same time. His very first day here, they told him curfew was ten p.m., and it took weeks to talk his mom around to nine thirty, then nine forty-five, then _finally_ ten. Taemin doesn’t know who he has to talk to get to ten fifteen.

When he hits the stairs the railing is cool under his palm, sleek and silver as moonlight. For half a second he considers climbing all the way back up just to try sliding down it, but after dancing all day his legs are so heavy somehow. As he reaches the last few steps, a voice he’d know anywhere says, “Taemin-ah.” He doesn’t need to turn and look up to know it’ll be Jonghyun half-walking, half-jogging towards the head of the stairs, any more than Jonghyun needs to repeat even louder, “Taemin-ah! You haven’t left yet?”

“You haven’t either.”

Every night Taemin stays this late, he always passes by Jonghyun in the vocal room on his way out, even if this is the first time Jonghyun has noticed him. Maybe he sleeps here. Maybe Taemin should start doing that. He wishes.

Jonghyun hesitates, frowning down at him, shifting his weight. Then he points one finger at Taemin, pinning him in place and commanding him, “Wait here, I’m just gonna get my stuff.”

If Taemin turned and started off without him Jonghyun would catch up in no time, anyway, since he spent all his time in the vocal room. It’s probably the most exercise he’s gotten all day when he takes the steps two at a time. As they set off again, Taemin doesn’t worry too much about keeping up with him. They just have to make it as far as the subway station, unless Jonghyun takes a bus from here? The night looks perfect through the glass doors, silent and dark, before they step out into it and the city sounds and yellow streetlight swallow them up. Taemin lingers behind Jonghyun, waiting to see if this is goodbye.

Like he’s read Taemin’s mind Jonghyun asks him, “Where do you live?”

“Why?” Taemin says stupidly.

Jonghyun narrows his eyes at him. “You shouldn’t be out this late, you do know that, right?”

“You sound like my mom.” But somehow the look Jonghyun gives him has Taemin admitting, “I know,” no matter how bitter the aftertaste is.

“You just don’t care?” Jonghyun says, not even bothering to hide his smile as he reaches up to pinch Taemin’s cheek. “Just because it’s a rich neighborhood doesn’t mean it’s a safe one, Taemin-ah. There are all kinds of creeps out here. I can put you on your bus, at least.”

“Train,” Taemin corrects him automatically, but the important thing is, “I can put myself on that.”

“Really? The subway is like half a mile from here.” Jonghyun considers Taemin for a moment, then tries again. “Seriously, where do you live?”

It’s not like it’s a secret or something, and it’s quicker just to tell him. The words have barely left Taemin’s mouth when Jonghyun reaches for him again, his wrist this time. He pulls Taemin forward in what used to be the wrong direction just a second ago. But not anymore apparently, not with Jonghyun’s hand all big and firm and the tone of his voice as he says, “And you’ve been taking the train? Come on.”

Taemin’s feet move on their own, following him. “Are you sure this is faster?”

He doesn’t even know what this is, but he finds out in half a block when they reach another one of the hundred bus stops around here, and Jonghyun finally lets him go. He throws himself down onto the bench. Taemin hesitates.

“You don’t have to wait with me, hyung.”

“I do, though,” Jonghyun contradicts him immediately. Taemin’s face goes hot and his stomach twists up, but before he can figure out how to tell Jonghyun he’s not a baby in a way that will make him listen—“We’re from the same neighborhood,” Jonghyun goes on. Which, what? He shakes his head at whatever look is on Taemin’s face right now, patting the seat next to him until Taemin’s muscles kick in and he does what he’s told. If he’d been quicker maybe he could’ve sat on Jonghyun’s hand. As it is, Jonghyun reaches for him yet again, this time to pet his hair. “My stop should be yours, too. This is why you should tell me things, Taemin-ah. It’s been months since you started, think of how much time hyung could have saved you.”

Taemin will see. The bus hasn’t even come yet.

He stretches his legs out, pushing his toes against the cement, that achy kind of relief. As time passes it fades, but whatever Jonghyun says, Taemin likes Gangnam better at night. There are barely any people around anymore, just cars whooshing by, their shadows stretching out in front of them, the stars in the sky. Satellites, Taewoo would tell Taemin in that voice that means he’s dumb, but there are millions and millions of them tonight. Some of them have to be real.

“Whenever I leave you’re always still there.”

Taemin didn’t even know he was going to say it until it’s out of his mouth. Jonghyun does that to him sometimes.

“Yep, I have no life~. Don’t be me, Taemin-ah. At least enjoy elementary school.”

“I hate school.”

All the time. Taemin wasn’t going to say that, either.

“Aigoo. Everyone does.” Jonghyun nudges him with his shoulder. “You don’t hate your friends, though.”

They probably hung out today. Maybe they went skateboarding, or to the arcade, or the noraebang. The last time they all went together was the weekend before Taemin started training. He got the lowest score on his song out of everyone, and they all laughed and asked him how he even passed his audition. Maybe they called Taemin’s house this morning to see if he wanted to come. Maybe not.

When the bus finally comes, Jonghyun pushes Taemin in front of him and follows him on, follows him all the way to the back and then scoots into the seat next to him, squashing Taemin against the window. The doors sigh close and the bus lurches back into traffic. Taemin watches the bus stop roll out of sight, trying to burn the cross street into his brain. Whatever. If he forgets he’ll just have to ask Jonghyun again. He can write it down or something.

Anyway, more importantly, “What time does this stop running?”

Jonghyun takes a second too long to tell him, “Ten thirty,” and afterwards his eyes linger on Taemin’s face, like he’s checking to see if his words have gone in anywhere. Taemin turns back to the window, pressing his cheek against the glass.

“You’re a bad liar, hyung. Just so you know.”

Jonghyun snorts, but he doesn’t try it again. “Twelve, same as the trains.”

“I heard sometimes people stay the night,” Taemin says, but that’s not a question, and it needs to be if he wants to get the truth out of Jonghyun again. When he sneaks a glance at Jonghyun he finds him still looking. “Have you ever?”

“Sometimes,” Jonghyun admits easily enough, before his eyes narrow and he adds, “You haven’t, though, and you won’t. You’re thirteen, Taeminnie. That has to mean something to you.”

“My mom would probably report me missing, anyway.”

Jonghyun laughs.

“I always make sure to call mine for that reason.” Then his mom must baby him too, even if Taemin can’t picture it. Jonghyun hesitates, like he’s not sure if he should say this next thing or not, but Taemin already knows he’s going to, because he always does. And sure enough: “I’ve never done it on purpose, it’s just, it’s easy to lose track of time in the vocal room. They don’t always check it after curfew, either.”

Taemin gets that. For him to keep track of time when he’s dancing it would have to still exist, but nothing does, except for Taemin and the song. Not school, not his friends, not his mom or his dad or Taewoo, not the summer sun, not breakfast or lunch or dinner. The problem is once the music stops it all comes rushing back, and suddenly he’s sweaty and tired and hungry and the moon is up and he’s going to be late getting home, and his mom is going to tell him fifty times why that’s bad, and his dad is going to make him promise not to do it again, and Taewoo probably won’t back Taemin up if he tells them he _knows,_ already. Maybe when it’s over he’ll tell Taemin, _Your friend called today. Hyung took a message for you and everything._ And maybe he won’t.

When Taemin leans against the window again, Jonghyun pushes his shoulder into his, warm and solid. Taemin closes his eyes. Pushes back.

“Look at you, you talk big but you’re about to fall asleep,” Jonghyun says. Taemin bites back his smile, waiting for the rest of it. How can a hyung who looked so scary be this easy? “Go ahead. I’ll wake you up at our stop.”

Taemin doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s too tired to sleep.

That first night they take the bus home together, they say goodbye at the bus stop and go their separate ways. The second, Jonghyun goes Taemin’s. Taemin doesn’t mind. The alleys they pass are a little less creepy than they were the night before, and since Jonghyun doesn’t know where they’re headed he’s stuck going at Taemin’s pace. He walks Taemin all the way up to his building, then ruffles his hair and turns to go, but not before he’s asked him, “Do you live upstairs?”

“Mm.”

“Must get hot up there.”

If the air conditioning ever craps out, it will. Then the air gets so thick Taemin feels like he’s swimming in it. They had a basement apartment before they came here, but that was years and years ago, and the one thing Taemin can remember about it is how cold his bedroom wall always was. Taewoo said they moved so that Taemin wouldn’t end up a midget. His mom said she missed the sunlight. None of this has anything to do with anything, though, and none of it can help him read the look on Jonghyun’s face.

Nothing helps him read it the next time, either, or the next, or the next or the next or the next, until one night the phone rings and Taewoo hollers for Taemin, and Taemin forgets all about it, along with everything else.

It’s Minhyuk.

“I just got back from visiting my grandma,” he tells Taemin. The one who lives up in the countryside and has an outhouse instead of a bathroom, probably. “Jaeseokkie’s family went to the beach and everything.”

Oh.

Taemin stands there dumbly, coiling the phone cord around and around his hand. “What about Dongil?”

“They’re still in Jejudo.” Pause. “What about you?”

That’s easy.

“Practicing.”

“Every day?” Minhyuk says disbelievingly. _“All_ day?”

Is it really that weird? Taemin isn’t the only one who goes in every day. The practice rooms fill up by ten a.m. on most days, and Jonghyun basically lives in the vocal room, and they all want to debut just as much as Taemin does. And yet somehow, it’s so hard for Taemin just to get out, “Mm.”

“Wow.”

“There’s this song I’ve been working on,” Taemin tells him. “I didn’t know all the steps, so I had to figure them out.”

“Are they testing you on it? You said you had evals or whatever.”

“No.”

Taemin can practically hear Minhyuk’s eyebrows climbing as he presses, “Is it fun, at least?”

Yes. No. It doesn’t have to be. Getting it right will be, getting it right will make it all worth it. Taemin wishes he knew how to talk about this the way he always used to talk about video games and skateboarding, who should get the last egg in their tteokbokki, whether that one kid in their class smokes or not. He wishes Minhyuk loved dancing as much as he does, or that he magically wanted to talk about whatever Taemin wanted to talk about, to hear whatever Taemin wanted to say, to do stuff whenever Taemin had time. That he had more of it.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Taemin says out loud, but the words he leaves unsaid settle in his chest, this weird ache, and now somehow his stomach is opening up, waiting for the answer.

Minhyuk keeps him waiting for all of two seconds, anyway. “I don’t know. Maybe skateboard by the river? My mom missed the end of _My Name Is Kim Samsoon,_ so if I don’t get out of here I’ll be stuck watching that all day.”

“It's over already? My mom liked it too.”

“Mine just likes Hyun Bin,” Minhyuk sighs.

Taemin’s too, Taemin is ninety-nine percent sure.

_Ask me if I want to come. If you ask I won’t say no, I’ll come._

There’s nothing stopping Taemin from telling Minhyuk any of this stuff, either, not Minhyuk’s silence, not Taemin’s Mom shooting him a smile and patting his back on her way into the kitchen, not the clock ticking down the time Taemin has left to stop being stupid and get around the block in his throat. He opens his mouth and—

“Speaking of gross, my noona is yelling at me to get off the phone,” Minhyuk says. “She wants to call her _boyfriend.”_

Taemin’s heart sinks to his toes.

“Oh.”

“See you, Taemin-ah.”

“See you.”

When school starts again, Taemin guesses.

Taemin goes back to his room, shutting the door behind him. He forgets the light until he’s already halfway to his bed, but faceplanting into his pillow and squeezing his eyes shut works just fine. Everything goes black.

They leave at ten, same as all summer, and for once the bus is early. The whole ride, Jonghyun talks and talks and talks, and by the time they reach their stop, Taemin can’t even remember about what. The night that was so loud and bright in Gangnam is sleepy and silent here, so there’s no one to say anything if Taemin practices dance steps as they walk. Jonghyun never has. He’s never even given Taemin a weird look for it.

After a long while Jonghyun says, “When school starts again, stop staying so late, okay?” _Then what about you?_ Taemin just barely bites it back, but before he can look away, somehow Jonghyun’s read it in his face. “You’re going to hate yourself when you’re older, Taemin-ah.”

“Not if I debut, I won’t,” Taemin tells his feet.

He’s so sure that’s going to get his cheek pinched or his hair ruffled, Jonghyun’s laughter so sharp to his ears, but instead he gets nothing. The hill up to Taemin’s building grows steeper and steeper, the air warmer and warmer, the moon brighter and brighter.

“Don’t you hate that word?” Jonghyun says finally. When Taemin sneaks a glance at him Jonghyun catches his eye, this weird half-smile splitting his face. It fades as they pass between streetlights, shadows swallowing them whole. “‘If,’ I mean.”

“I guess?”

Taemin’s never really thought about it before, but maybe that’s because words don’t mean as much to him as they do to other people. He never lies, unless he really, really can’t help it, but he never knows the right thing to say, and talking never lets any of the things inside him out, it just makes him feel trapped in his own head and his own body. If he said any of this to Jonghyun right now, Jonghyun probably wouldn’t get it. He wouldn’t make that face people always make, either, though, the one that says Taemin is stupid, and maybe he’d keep asking questions until Taemin made sense to him. Maybe then Taemin would make sense to himself, too.

“Taemin-ah.” Jonghyun bumps Taemin’s shoulder with his own. “Why did you audition?”

Shouldn’t that one be obvious?

“I wanted to be a singer.”

“But why?” Jonghyun presses him, but before Taemin can come up with a new answer he’s come up with a new question. “How did you end up auditioning?”

That’s easy, too.

“My teacher told me I should, he said I might be good enough to pass. And then my dad said that SM was a big company, so I should try there. That they’d take care of me.”

He’s barely finished when Jonghyun pushes his shoulder into his again, warm and solid. “And you? What did you think?”

That they both probably knew what they were talking about? That it was worth a shot? That it was worth so much more than that to Taemin? That the day of his audition he almost threw up in the morning and he almost refused to get out of the car when they got there, almost begged his dad to take him back home. That they got lost in Gangnam and then got lost in SM, that he lied to the audition panel and said he liked steak, when the only kind his family could afford was Hamburg steak from the school cafeteria, that he crossed that line they said not to cross when it was his turn to dance. That for all the days after, he couldn’t taste food, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t understand Korean, couldn’t breathe, until the afternoon the phone rang, and he found out he’d get to come back. He might have cried that night for the first time since he was like five. All night. But Taewoo slept through it right across the hall and Taemin’s eyes weren’t red enough in the morning for Mom to notice, and they’ve been dry for months since. No one ever has to know, least of all Jonghyun.

What is there left to tell him? Not nothing, since Jonghyun is Jonghyun. He’s first person to ask Taemin.

“I saw Rain on TV,” Taemin says.

“That’s it?” Jonghyun says in disbelief.

What does he mean, that’s it? It’s _Rain._

“At first I just thought he looked cool and wanted to copy him, but then it was fun, and I was good at it,” Taemin explains haltingly. It gets easier when he goes back to talking to his feet. “I’m not good in school or at sports or anything. Even if I tried my hardest I still wouldn’t be. With dancing it’s different. I’m different.”

“Aigoo. When I was your age, my deepest thought was probably, ‘I really want tonkatsu.’”

Jonghyun scrubs his hand through Taemin’s hair. Taemin can hear his smile in his voice. In a second he’ll raise his eyes from the ground to Jonghyun’s face again, see if it looks just how it sounds. This part of the sidewalk is so messed up, shattered around tree roots, littered with bottles and chip bags from the convenience store on the corner up ahead. The first few times they walked together, Jonghyun tripped here. Taemin has too a few times, practicing Crazy Legs.

“How long have you been at SM?” Taemin says, kicking a can out of Jonghyun’s way. It skitters into the gutter, out of sight.

“Since this year, same as you,” Jonghyun replies. “They’re the ones who talked to me first, last fall. They saw me with my band at this festival—”

“You’re in a band?”

“—but I auditioned four times before they finally let me in,” Jonghyun finishes, before he catches up to Taemin’s question and corrects him, “Was in a band. I haven’t been to practice in forever, they’ll probably kick me out soon.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, and even lit up in the store’s neon sign, Taemin still can’t read the look on his face. “We probably won’t see each other after this year, anyway.”

Yeah. The last year of middle school probably sucks even more than the last year of elementary, but what would Taemin know? All he can do is look forward to it~

Instead of saying any of that out loud, Taemin tries, “Is that where you learned to sing like that?”

Jonghyun shakes his head. “They already had a singer when I joined. I play bass.” He hesitates. “I don’t even know if I want to be a singer, anyway, I thought maybe I could write songs.”

“Do they train people for that too?” Taemin says, confused.

“No. I don’t know.” At the look on Taemin’s face Jonghyun narrows his eyes. “What?” Nothing. _Give me your voice if you don’t want it._ But nothing, because Taemin is not saying that out loud. Eyes lingering on Taemin’s face like he’s still watching his reaction, Jonghyun tells him, “I wanted to be a Korean language teacher originally, but with my grades that’s out, and then I thought maybe I could write books, since you don’t need to pass tests for that.” He hesitates again, then looks away, the streetlight spilled across the sidewalk, the moon in the sky, the ahjussi walking past with his dog, anything but Taemin. “Now I’m thinking of being a poet.” Then, all in a rush, like Taemin said otherwise, like Taemin said _anything,_ “Songs basically are poetry, you know. Lyrics are. Whatever.”

“Why do you always think I’m thinking something bad?”

Maybe because stupid stuff like that always comes out of Taemin’s mouth.

It gets Jonghyun to look at him again, though. “What are you thinking?”

Nothing. Taemin’s legs are tired. His whole body is tired. When he gets up to do it all again tomorrow, he’ll probably be even more tired than he is now. He doesn’t understand why Jonghyun wouldn’t want to do what he’s good at, why singing doesn’t mean the same thing to him that dancing does to Taemin, but he doesn’t understand why not understanding Jonghyun has to mean he’s laughing at him or something.

“I want tonkatsu,” Taemin says, first safe thing that pops into his head.

“Aigoo.”

He’s ready when Jonghyun reaches for him again, but he doesn’t dodge, and it doesn’t hurt at all when Jonghyun pokes his finger into his side.

“You made me think of it. My mom told me what she was making tonight but I forgot.”

It’ll be cold, anyway, whatever it is. Taemin’s too hungry to wait for his mom to warm it up.

Jonghyun pokes him again, twisting his finger into the soft skin beneath Taemin’s ribs. “For a second I thought you were hitting hyung up again, after I got you lunch and everything.”

“You’re not hungry at all?”

“I’ll probably make ramyun when I get home.”

What about Jonghyun’s mom? Even if she works, she must be home by now. At least by the time Jonghyun gets home, she should be. As they reach Taemin’s building, all the windows in his apartment are lit up, and his dad’s car is parked just down the block. He might like Jonghyun. Taemin’s mom definitely would. She got his name out of Taemin the day he learned it, and if she knew was out here right now, she’d probably shout down at him to come in. She probably wouldn’t even care if Jonghyun had to leave Taemin behind, melting into a puddle of embarrassment on the pavement.

None of that happens. Jonghyun smiles down at him, pets him on the head, and tells Taemin for the first time all summer, “See you tomorrow, Taeminnie,” and turns to go.

Before Taemin knows what’s happening, “Hyung,” comes flying out of him.

Jonghyun turns back to him. “What?”

Nothing. Just…

“Do you really think I’ll hate myself?” Suddenly, this is so important. “Will I really hate myself when I’m older?”

“No, you’re you. That’s impossible,” Jonghyun replies immediately, so easily Taemin’s head spins. Taemin looks up to find that weird smile from earlier back on his face.

Then why does Taemin’s heart hurt so much all of the sudden? It hurts more than the rest of his body put together.

“What about you?”

Like it’s nothing, right away Jonghyun is telling him, “I already do, so I’m not too worried about it,” but if that’s supposed to be funny, if Taemin’s supposed to be laughing at him again, how could he? He watches the smile on Jonghyun’s face twist, then wither, then die, but for as long as Jonghyun holds his eyes, Taemin isn’t allowed to look away. “I also hate summer. I always have, I don’t care if I get it off,” Jonghyun says finally, in a voice that sounds so close to normal that maybe it really is. Maybe Taemin’s just hearing things. “At least SM has air conditioning, none of my friends do.”

Again, Jonghyun turns to go.

“I don’t know if my friends are still my friends.”

Yeah. Taemin said that. He sucks. The ground could swallow him up any second now. His mom could call down, _Taemin-ah, hurry up and get inside before Mom forgets and locks you out~,_ even that would be better.

“Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun begins.

“I don’t want to talk about it, it just came out,” comes rushing out of him, all jumbled up. Taemin reaches for the gate, trying to remember the passcode. “You don’t have to walk me home, hyung. It’s just further for you.”

“Why do you think I do everything just because I have to? I know I don't.” Jonghyun’s hand lands on Taemin’s shoulder, drawing him back around. Jonghyun hesitates, scanning Taemin’s face. What if he’s checking for tears or something? Shit, so embarrassing. But then all Jonghyun says is, “How did you do that thing earlier?”

“What?”

“It was right when we got off the bus.”

“What was?”

Jonghyun’s shoes scrape up dirt from the pavement as he shuffles his feet and twists his legs together, tripping over himself as he spins and throwing his arms out as though to catch his fall. He’d probably need to if Taemin weren’t here to grab the back of his T-shirt and yank him upright, collar cutting off Jonghyun’s air, cutting off his laughter. There’s nothing that can stop Taemin’s, crazy, loud, breathless, that stupid hiccupping laugh he’s tried to change so many times. Not the lights in the windows or the time of night or the looks Jonghyun gives him or the big endless sky above them. The stars wink and the moon smiles down at them both. Jonghyun is smiling at Taemin, a big crinkly-eyed one, even crazier.

Taemin shows him the right way to do it.


	3. Voice

The only reason Taemin showers in the morning is because he’s too tired to do it at night, not to hog the bathroom just because he can like Taewoo thinks, but today it’s just as well. He woke up all sweaty and gross, even though he can’t even remember falling asleep. He has no idea how he ever did. The last thing he can remember is lying in bed staring at the ceiling, checking the clock whenever he dared. Sometimes a minute had passed, sometimes thirty. He’d wished he had an MP3 player or something to make drown out its ticking, make him forget it existed at all.

Even now, he can’t forget.

“Hurry up, Taemin-ah.” Taewoo pounds on the door, voice breaking into a whine. “Taemin-ah~, hyung has to pee.”

He knocks one more time, hard enough that it rattles in its hinges a little, but then he goes away. If it’s bad he can go borrow the neighbor’s bathroom or something. Just a few more minutes before Taemin gets to the next part of his day. Just a few more, please.

Taemin closes his eyes. Tips his head back. Waits until the rush of the water fades and “How to Avoid the Sun” fills his head. Rain’s voice. Just humming along has Taemin’s heart pounding louder than Taewoo had on the door. Shit. How is he supposed to sing?

Whatever. It’s just the shower. Taemin’s voice scrapes up his throat. There’s no one to see if his ears burn, no one to hear if he goes off key, if he can’t remember half the words, if the half he does come out all wrong, if his voice cracks—

_Fuck._

It really can’t do that later. Really, really, really.

On the other side of the door Taemin’s life is waiting for him, and it looks like the smirk on Taewoo’s face.

“You were standing here the whole time?” Taemin blurts out, stomach plummeting.

Taewoo’s smirk widens. “Nice concert.”

Taemin makes a run for it, Taewoo’s laughter setting his ears on fire. He only gets as far as the kitchen before he runs into Mom, setting the last of the banchan on the table. She looks up with a smile that hurts even more than Taewoo’s smirk somehow, bright and too-big.

“Breakfast is ready, wangja-nim~” she sings out. “I might have made a few things special~”

“I’m not hungry,” comes flying out of Taemin’s mouth, followed by, “and I’m not five, Mom.”

She wrinkles her nose at him. “You think Mom doesn’t know that? When you get older I do too.”

When he doesn’t move, she reaches for him, pressing a gentle hand to his back and pushing him forward, guiding him to his place. She pushes his chair in for him, too, and even though it’s not too close to the table, he still feels like he can’t breathe. It doesn’t help at all when she pats his back and ruffles his hair, or when she passes behind him to sit next to him, and Taemin has to worry about eye contact again.

“Eat, Taemin-ah. You need your strength today.”

Taemin picks up his chopsticks and—

“For what?” Taewoo says, dropping in to the chair across from Taemin. He pulls the plate of tamagoyaki towards himself. That’s Taemin’s favorite, when his taste buds and stomach are actually working.

Mom beams at Taemin, pushing the plate back towards him and putting some on his plate. “His first vocal lesson.”

“He doesn’t need them, though?”

There’s that smirk again. If Taemin sits here a second longer he might try and hit it with his spoon or something crazy. His body moves before his brain can even catch up, carrying him away from the table, towards the entryway, Mom’s voice ringing in his ears as he shoves his feet into his shoes and pushes the door open, blast of cold air reminding him to grab his coat. He can say he’s sorry later, if he’s found his voice again by then. If he hasn’t, he’ll be dead anyway. Down the stairs, out the gate, onto the street, pavement pounding under his feet. His legs feel more like jello with every step.

“Taemin-ah.” Taewoo. Taemin keeps walking. “Taemin-ah!”

Next thing Taemin knows Taewoo has him by the hood of his jacket, pulling him back around, face red, breathing hard, and then he pushes Taemin’s backpack into his chest. Oh. Taemin would rather die than say thank you, even though he probably should. Whatever. He threads his arms through the straps. Keeps walking.

“Do you have a test today or something?” Taewoo asks him. Now he’s using his Hyung is Concerned voice instead of his Taeminnie is Dumb one, and it’s so much worse somehow.

“No.”

“Is it training? Is SM giving you a hard time?”

“No,” Taemin repeats loudly.

Taewoo bumps his shoulder with his. “You can tell me if they are. I won’t tell Mom.”

_They’re not being hard on me. I need to be harder on myself._ Taemin bites it back, avoiding Taewoo’s eyes. _“No,_ I said.”

Pause. Then, “Is it hyung?”

Is Taemin supposed to say no? Too bad.

“Mm.”

“It was a joke, Taemin-ah.” He pokes at Taemin’s side and Taemin twists away. “Aigooo.” Again, and Taemin bats at his hand. Next time he’s going to have to break Taewoo’s finger off or something. “Okay, I won’t joke anymore. I’ll just be serious all the time. Yah, let’s walk together. How are you so fast, your legs are so short.”

Somehow Taemin keeps walking.

Somehow the whole day passes and the train is on time and so is the bus, and Taemin’s feet carry him all the way up to the training center. Somehow after all that he still has a whole hour to kill, and he’s back to the same problem he had last night. If he goes to the practice room and works on dancing he’ll be out of time before he knows it, but if he just hangs around and waits it’ll take that long for a minute to pass.

What is he supposed to do? Maybe if he asks Jonghyun, he’d know. He’d think he would, at least, he’s always telling Taemin what to do, but right now, that’s fine with Taemin. Anything would beat the rushing in his ears and the static in his head, like a TV that’s lost its signal.

Jonghyun isn’t in the practice room. Taemin stomach almost falls out when he checks the vocal rooms, but Jonghyun isn’t in any of them either. On his way down the stairs a third time to check the entrance and the cafeteria, he spots Jonghyun coming up.

“Hyung.”

Jonghyun stops mid-sentence and looks over at him, and so does the shaggy-haired hyung next to him. Taemin’s never even seen him before, at least he thinks he hasn’t, which probably means he’s new? Maybe? Taemin doesn’t know anything right now.

“We’ve been coming here for almost a year and this is the first time he’s said hello to me first, so don’t get used to it,” Jonghyun says to the hyung beside him, leaning across the middle railing to ruffle Taemin’s hair. All he has to say to Taemin is, “They said it’s curry day, Taemin-ah.”

Did he think Taemin was going down to check with the lunch ladies or something?

_I was looking for you. Check on me, pick on me, try to annoy me like you always do. Put my head back on straight, please._

But before Taemin can even open his mouth and try to say any of that, Jonghyun is already halfway up the stairs, new hyung in tow, and Taemin is on his own.

Seconds drag by. Minutes. Taemin paces the halls. Up and down the stairs, around the practice rooms, splashing water on his face in the boy’s bathroom on every floor. He can’t talk to Jonghyun, but he can’t talk to himself either. He can’t even think.

_Taemin-ah, you can do this._

_You have to. If you don’t you’re dead._

_You might be the worst, but it’s okay. You have to start somewhere, that’s just how it is. No one will care if you suck, at least not as much as you do._

_Stop caring so much. You already know you suck. This is a training program, it’s to train people. If you didn’t need to learn anything you would have debuted already._

_If you don’t learn how to sing you never will._

_Taemin-ah, fighting!_

Time.

…Shit. Shit shit shit shit shitshitshitSHIT.

Somehow Taemin gets the classroom right, probably because he’s passed by this door a million times today and seen Jonghyun through the little window millions of millions of times this year. It’s not nearly as cramped as the vocal room would be, though, and it’s not just Jonghyun now, no matter how many faces he makes at Taemin. _What are you doing here, Taeminnie, can’t you see hyung is in class?_ Taemin knows some of the hyungs from his dance class, and he’s probably seen most of the noonas in the hallways and the cafeteria. The teacher, though. As soon as his eyes land on Taemin, he strides forward, steering him to the front of the room, rubber legs and all, where the hyung from before is already waiting. He smiles down at Taemin. Taemin would smile back if the muscles in his face were working.

“As you can see, we have two new faces today,” Vocal Ssaem says, squeezing Taemin’s shoulder and nodding at the hyung next to him. “You might already know each other, but go ahead and introduce yourself.”

His name is Lee Jinki. This is his first day. He’s still learning, please take care of him, and that’s about as much as Taemin hears. They all know who he is already, but it’s still his turn next. He can’t say anything stupid, like he does in school every single time he has to get up to do a problem on the board or present something to the class. Jinki’s shaggy hair falls into his face as he bows. Taemin opens his mouth and, “And you all know Taeminnie,” Vocal Ssaem’s voice booms. He squeezes Taemin’s shoulder. “He’ll be auditing our lessons from now on.”

That’s it. Taemin can go sit down now. Taemin makes for the back of the room, head down. He doesn’t even think about Jonghyun until he twists around to shoot Taemin a look. _Why didn’t you tell me?!_ If this were the bus Jonghyun would probably get up and move to sit next to Taemin, but instead Taemin is left staring at the back of Jonghyun’s head, fighting to focus while his head swims and his stomach enters free fall, to listen to Vocal Ssaem over the rushing in his ears.

One by one, the rest of the class gets called up to sing. Jonghyun. Sooyeon. Taeyeon. Jonghyun’s talked about her before, she’s better than him or something, the best. Taemin is the worst. When it’s the kid sitting in front of Taemin, he thinks he’s going to be sick. Then Jinki. And then…

Nothing. Not Taemin, at least. Another one of the noonas again.

Did Ssaem forget him? Is this a dream, is Taemin going to have to go through this whole fucking day over again? Taemin steps on his own toes, grinding his shoe down hard enough to hurt, but feeling is rushing in and out, hot and cold. Halfway through class he can finally breathe again, and when he finally stands up to leave at the end, his legs work.

Jonghyun catches up to him in the hallway, throwing his arm around Taemin’s shoulders. Taemin resists the urge to shrug him off, avoiding Jonghyun’s eyes. “How was it?”

“I don’t know.”

Taemin’s voice comes out so normal it’s weird.

“Boring?”

“I guess.”

“Are you doing one-on-one lessons, too?” Taemin hadn’t thought about it when he first heard, and he doesn’t want to think about it now. Jonghyun answers his own question, anyway. “You can’t really audit that. You’d have to sing or there’d be no point.” And then he moves on, like he didn’t just poke a hole in Taemin’s stomach, leave him with that weird word again. ‘Auditing.’ “I’ve worked on that song for weeks. Did hyung look cool~?”

“You just looked like yourself,” Taemin manages. “You sounded like yourself too.”

_I would’ve sounded like shit, anyway._

“What time are you going home today?”

“I don’t know, sometime.”

For the first time since Taemin started coming here, he wants that to mean right now. He can’t leave, though, he can’t miss a whole day over stupid stuff like this, or he’ll get behind on this week’s choreography, and then he’ll fuck up evals too. Dancing is all he has.

“Do you know anything?” Jonghyun laughs right in his ear, that low, breathless laugh of his, but somehow it sounds so loud it hurts. When Taemin ducks away from him, he reaches up with the hand draped over Taemin’s shoulder to pinch his cheek. “Aigoo. I’ll come get you when I’m done.”

“It’s fine,” Taemin tells the floor.

“You keep saying stuff I already know,” Jonghyun accuses him, leaving Taemin with this feeling like he’s been holding his breath forever and his chest is about to explode or something. “What about something I don’t? Hmm? Taemin-ah?”

When Jonghyun squeezes him close Taemin wrenches free, but the pressure just gets tighter, and he can barely get out, “There’s nothing, according to you.”

Jonghyun just blinks at him. “What?”

What is right. What the fuck is Taemin saying?

“It’d take too long to go through it all, hyung. How am I supposed to know what you don’t know, anyway? I don’t know anything.”

Jonghyun stops to look him in the face. People walk past them, rushing to find a vocal room before they all fill up, to pick the music in the practice rooms and leave everyone else with their MP3 players. Taemin should hurry up. He forgot his headphones at home, so he can’t even pretend he has one, or block out the sound.

Finally, Jonghyun asks, “Are you mad at me?”

Yes. “No.”

Taemin doesn’t know that, either.

Jonghyun laughs again, that same stupid laugh that all of the sudden Taemin just hates. “Even the way you get mad is weird.”

He reaches for Taemin again, face splitting into this strange half-smile, and Taemin sees red, and all he can think is, the way you don’t is annoying. He should knock Jonghyun’s hand away, but that’d probably just knock out of him, _Aigoo~._

Really annoying.

“I’m not fucking mad,” Taemin says, and storms off.

When dinner rolls around Taemin doesn’t feel like curry. All last summer, whenever Taemin forgot the lunch his mom packed at home, Jonghyun would buy a mountain of triangle kimbap from the convenience store a block down, and then they’d go up to the roof to eat. He always acted surprised that Taemin could finish it all, but he was the one who bought that much.

Today he’d probably act surprised if Taemin suggested they go up there instead, especially when it looks like snow, and even if he’s not mad or something, which anyone else probably would be, he’d be too scared he’d catch a cold or something and wreck his voice. Taemin doesn’t have to worry about that. He remembers where he left his coat for once so Jonghyun won’t have to worry about him, just in case he still would, and by the time he’s trooped up the extra flights of stairs he’s gotten the zipper to work. The door handle is like ice when he reaches for it, and as he wrenches it open the air hits him like a slap to his face, so hard his skin stings.

The voice hits his ears even harder. For a split second Taemin is sure he’s gone crazy, he’s hearing things, but then he sees him. Sitting cross-legged at the edge of the roof, huddled in a parka that looks even bigger and warmer than Taemin’s, staring up into the sky, singing so loud Taemin should probably be getting second hand embarrassment. That one hyung from earlier. The one Jonghyun showed around. Jinki. It’s only his first day, and he’s already miles and miles ahead of Taemin.

Taemin swallows the bitter taste in his mouth and turns back to the door, just as it slams shut behind him.

“Sorry,” Taemin blurts out, before he turns back around and meets Jinki’s eyes, millions of excuses jumbling up in his mouth. “I didn’t mean to listen. I’ll just go.”

Jinki just blinks at him. “It’s fine. I don’t own the roof or anything.”

“You were here first.”

“You were here way before me, though,” Jinki replies. Taemin is stuck between telling him he makes no sense and bowing and apologizing his way back to safety, until Jinki goes on, “To be honest, I don’t know what to call you. Sunbae~?”

He smiles at his own joke, patting the spot on the concrete next to him. Taemin’s feet move on their own, carrying him all the way over there. When he squats down besides Jinki, Jinki just smiles at him some more, leaning back on his hands. He looks so comfortable that Taemin lowers himself onto his butt, cold and damp seeping through his pants immediately. Ugh. If Jonghyun was Incomplete hyung, Jinki would be Stupid hyung.

Taemin is stupider. He smiles back.

“Sunbae is too weird.”

“You want some?” Jinki asks, pushing his food between them. “I bought too much. They said I have to start watching my weight, or else it’ll hurt my chances of debuting.”

“They say that about all kinds of stuff,” Taemin tells Jinki, but that’s not important right now. Jinki’s mountain of triangle kimbap is. It’s probably from that same store down the block. Jonghyun would get one of every flavor and let Taemin have dibs, and part of Taemin always wanted to mess with him and take the tuna mayo, Jonghyun’s favorite. These are all spicy chicken.

Taemin reaches for one and rips the plastic off, peeling the seaweed wrapper back along with it. Jinki doesn’t laugh at Taemin, though, and when he reaches for the next one, he doesn’t take it from Taemin’s hands and do it for him, the way Jonghyun always did. _You just focus on eating, Taemin-ah._

“Like what?” Jinki says. “What kinds of stuff do they say?”

“Have you done image training yet?”

Jinki wrinkles his nose. “Like in Dragon Ball?”

Is that why the hyungs call it that? The lady from the program calls it some English word. PR or something. Anyway.

“Like…they tell you how to react to stuff, and stuff. You can’t get mad, ever, and you’re not supposed to say anything weird.” Yeah, Taemin is probably the last person who should be explaining this. “Like, they’ve told me stuff like…I have to act as cute as I look, or something? That’s just what they said.”

“Sounds pretty hard,” Jinki says through a mouthful of kimbap.

“I’m just bad at it.” Jinki just smiles, seaweed caught between his front teeth. Maybe he’d be worse than Taemin. “Who cares, anyway? The main problem is that I can’t sing.”

“Your voice hasn’t changed yet?”

“That’s why I just sat there today.” Taemin picks up his next kimbap, turning it over and over in his hands. The plastic catches what little sunlight there is, weak and silvery. “That’s what auditing means, right? I don’t get why they use such a big word to mean doing nothing.”

And that came out all weird. Taemin fumbles with the plastic, and again, he peels back the seaweed too. Shit.

“If that’s all it is, then you can’t not sing, either…Taemin-ah?” Taemin can feel Jinki’s eyes on his face, probably checking to see if he got him right. Taemin will meet them in a second, when his ears stop tingling. “Taemin-ah. You won’t know either way until you get to try. And besides, anyone can sing. You don’t need technique for that, you just need vocal cords.”

Somehow that unravels the knots in Taemin’s stomach, and he can get his head up. “How long did it take yours to change?”

Jinki pulls a face like he’s thinking about it. “Ummmm…middle school sometime? I didn’t really think about it when it happened, it just kind of did. It still cracks a lot, though.”

Wait, back up.

“Are you in high school?”

Jinki nods. “First year.”

“Really?”

That makes him a whole year older than Jonghyun, and the school year ends next month, which means he’s basically a second year. Which means Jonghyun is really screwed. Or maybe not, since it’s Jinki. All he has to say to Taemin right now is, “Hyung doesn’t look old?”

Before he can think he’s blurting out, “No, you do.”

Jinki just laughs.

“Aigoo, now I’m not just fat, I’m old too.” He shoots Taemin a narrow look. “You’re a good eater, so you’re good for that half, but I’ll just look older next to you. I don’t know if we can do this again.”

Which reminds Taemin.

“People come up here sometimes, just so you know.” Just in case it’s embarrassing to get caught singing on the roof by someone cooler than Taemin. “Mostly to hang out. Or to cry. Or smoke.”

“Not you?”

Jinki smiles to himself again, probably picturing it. Taemin isn’t crazy, though. When Taewoo stole one of their dad’s cigarettes, Mom grounded him for a month.

“I just wanted fresh air.” Taemin crams the last bite of kimbap into his mouth and leans back on his hands, stretching his legs out, staring off into the distance. “Plus…I don’t know. The sky is so big it makes my life look smaller. It helps me stop being stupid about stuff.”

“I wish it helped me with that~,” Jinki replies. Then, leaning back next to Taemin, “I just like to think about my voice reaching the clouds.”

“It sounds the same when you talk as when you’re singing,” Taemin says.

Jinki pushes his shoulder into Taemin’s. “Weird, right?”

Taemin pushes back. “Weird doesn’t mean bad. That’s what Jonghyun hyung told me.”

“He’s right about that, at least,” Jinki says, before going on, “Hyung talked so much when he was showing me around, but honestly, I can’t remember anything he said.”

_Hyung._ That’s what Jonghyun gets for showing off, but why is it Taemin who’s stuck with his skin prickling, his stomach squirming, his brain jamming up?

“He talks a lot,” is the first safe thing Taemin can think to say.

“It was more like I was nervous?”

“That hyung is always doing stuff he doesn’t have to do,” Taemin says, before his conscious pangs. His heart does too, somehow. “He says he knows he doesn’t, though.”

Jinki offers Taemin the last triangle kimbap. Taemin gets the plastic off with the seaweed intact and everything, but it’s no good. He sinks his thumbs into the middle and rips it in half. Jinki doesn’t care how gross it looks with its insides hanging out, red and angry, or about the rice sticking to Taemin’s fingers as he hands it over. It tastes just as good, anyway.

At eight thirty, the dance instructor starts reminding Taemin that the clock is ticking. Every other time the song stops it’s, _One more time, Taemin-ah. Just one more, and then let’s go home, okay?_ Taemin isn’t making him work late, though, he’d be fine on his own. Still, Donghyuk ssaem stays with him more often than not these days, and sometimes he shows Taemin stuff he’s only seen Michael Jackson do in old videos. Taemin finally memorized his name, too. Once nine thirty rolls around, Taemin gives up and heads to the bathroom to change, so Donghyuk ssaem ruffles his hair goodbye and checks one last time if he needs a ride, which Taemin doesn’t. He’s avoided the vocal room all night and danced away all the stupid stuff in his head, but now his body stiff and slow, and by the time he reaches the vocal room door, it’s all caught up to him.

He already knows he’ll see Jonghyun if he peers through the window. His eyes squeezed shut, hands holding his headphones, vein standing out on his neck. Probably hitting a high note or something. He won’t notice if Taemin cracks the door open and listens. Jonghyun’s voice pours over him.

_Sorry, hyung. I was mad. It wasn’t at you, though, it was at myself. Sorry._

Taemin hesitates, fingers tightening around the door handle.

_It’s almost ten. When are you going to remember to come get me? If I left right now you’d probably stay here all night._

He pushes it all the way open.

“Time to go, hyung.”

Jonghyun is quiet on the way home. Too quiet. It’s so much harder than it looks for Taemin to fill his silences. If Taemin says something that needs an answer, though, Jonghyun gives him one, which is more than he ever gets from Taemin. He lost track of time again in the vocal room. Of course he’s tired. Isn’t Taemin? That’s not a full moon, it’s still waxing. He was working on that song some more. No, he doesn’t get tired of singing the same thing over and over. Does Taemin get tired of doing the same choreography? He’s not hungry. Even if he were it’s not good to eat at this time of night. Does that mean he is? Whatever. The more they talk about food, the hungrier Taemin gets. Jinki let him have more than half of it, but still, that kimbap feels like ten million years ago.

The bus stop in front of SM feels like it too, by the time they come up to Taemin’s gate. All that’s left is good night now. This should be the easiest part—for the first time all night Taemin knows what he’s supposed to say. Somehow it’s harder, though. Taemin scrapes his shoe through the slushy ice at his feet, working up the courage to look Jonghyun in the face again.

_You’re not being quiet because you’re mad, right? It’s really because you’re tired? Tomorrow you’ll be back to normal. Right?_

“Taeminnie?”

Taemin almost jumps out of his skin at the sound of Dad’s voice. He whirls around to find he’s thrown the gate wide open, smiling down at Taemin.

“Did you just get home?” Taemin asks. Dad’s expression doesn’t change. Mom says Taemin got his smile from him, bright and happy. And dumb, Taewoo would probably add, but only if Taemin and Dad were both there to laugh it off. Anyway. “Did your boss make you drink again?”

Dad hefts the trashbags in his hand by way of explanation. Oh. Duh. Taemin stands aside to let him through the gate. “I could ask you the same thing,” Dad says, setting them down on the curb in front of the sorting bins. Then he adds quickly, “Not about the drinking, about the time.”

“Mom said I could go to ten.”

That’s good enough for Dad. It always is. “And who is this?”

Jonghyun. He’s standing off to the side, stiff and awkward and silent under Dad’s gaze.

“Jonghyun hyung,” Taemin says for him. Jonghyun has nothing to add to that, quieter than ever. Less like himself. Taemin gives up shooting him looks and explains, “He’s in the training program with me, he lives around here.”

“And he walked you all the way home? Aigoo.” Dad smiles at Jonghyun. “Would you like to come up?”

Jonghyun hesitates, looking between Taemin and his dad. Taemin doesn’t know what he’s looking for, what he should say for him this time, but finally Jonghyun replies, “No, that’s okay.”

Whenever Taemin says stuff like that to him, Jonghyun always answers, _I know it is,_ and then doesn’t listen to him, but Dad just nods, making Taemin’s stomach twist weirdly. “I’ll drive you home, then. Wait here, I’ll go grab my keys. Taeminnie can deal with the trash.”

Taemin can, no matter how much he really, really, _really_ doesn’t want to. Shit. Before he can say anything, though, Jonghyun is telling Dad, “It’s fine, really. It’s not far from here.”

“My mom will make hotteok if you come, hyung.” The words come to Taemin out of nowhere. “She won’t make it for just me and Taewoo hyung. Come on.”

For one long moment, Jonghyun remains paralyzed, watching Taemin’s dad instead of Taemin, but then Dad laughs and says, “Sounds like you better,” and presses a hand to Jonghyun’s back, guiding him towards the gate. “Remember not to lock Dad out, Taemin-ah. I’ll be up later.”

Jonghyun follows Taemin inside. Taemin has the length of the hall and the stairs and the balcony to regret the last five seconds of his life. Mom is going to embarrass him without even trying, and if she tries...

Is it too late to turn back? Jonghyun said he was tired, anyway. But Jonghyun is walking behind Taemin now, shadowing him, and if Taemin hesitates, he will too. At last they reach Taemin’s door. Taemin gives himself one last deep breath, one last glance at Jonghyun. When he tries the handle he finds it unlocked. He spends his last few seconds to live kicking his shoes off and watching Jonghyun until he does the same, and then he hears Mom’s footsteps, her voice calling, “Yeobo? You’re done already? Wow, that was—“ she pauses when she finds the two of them instead of Dad. “Fast.”

“This is the hyung I told you about,” Taemin begins, just as Jonghyun says, “I’m in the training program with Taeminnie, we go home together. I mean we take the same bus.”

“You’re Jonghyun?”

Jonghyun shoots Taemin a glance, but before Taemin can figure out what he’s supposed to say this time, Jonghyun gets there first, the way he normally would, smiling behind his hand, eyes crinkling up. “I don’t know what Taeminnie told you about me, but yes.”

_Nothing weird, Mom. Nothing weird. Please._

Mom just beams at Jonghyun. That does nothing to stop the heart attack Taemin thinks he might be having, but then Mom tells Taemin to take Jonghyun’s backpack and put it away with his, and before he knows it he has his bedroom door at his back, and he can breathe again. Once he comes out he finds Jonghyun into the living room, where Mom’s ironing board is out and the TV is turned on to that one boring drama with Rain it, and Taemin thinks maybe he’s saved. Maybe. She doesn’t make hotteok, but she cuts up the rest of the apples for them to eat, and the sound of plates clattering draws Taewoo out of his room.

Throwing himself down onto the floor next to Taemin and stealing a slice of apple from Taemin’s plate, he asks Jonghyun, “Are you one of Taeminnie’s friends?”

Taemin doesn’t have any of those anymore.

“Jonghyun hyung, Taewoo hyung.” Taemin hesitates, then lets himself get away with it. “Taewoo, to you. He’s only fifteen.”

Taewoo lets him get away with it too, probably because Jonghyun laughs at Taemin and pinches Taemin’s cheek and says, “Only fifteen? You’re thirteen.” And probably because he always does. When Mom isn’t asking Jonghyun about the program, about Taemin, about Jonghyun’s family, about Taemin, about school, about Taemin…she’s asking Taemin what just happened, why are these people acting so crazy, why would Rain make out with Shin Minah after she just barfed, like Taemin is supposed to know.

“Because she’s Shin Minah,” Taewoo supplies, even though Taemin is pretty sure Shin Minah’s barf wouldn’t taste any better than anyone else’s. It’s not Rain, anyway. It’s the character. That’s how acting is. And it’s not like the barf was real, either. Dad would back him up if he said any of that out loud, if Dad hadn't bailed five minutes after coming back up and gone to read.

At the end of the episode Jonghyun says finally, “I should get going,” not to Taemin but to Mom, rising onto his haunches like he’s not sure if it’s okay for him to stand up.

“Stay the night,” Mom says immediately. “Give me your mother’s number and I’ll call her. It’s okay, there’s no school tomorrow.”

Jonghyun doesn’t even glance at Taemin to see if it’s okay with him, which it is, but still. He just hesitates some more, then smiles and nods and says he’ll call, if he can borrow the phone. By the time he gets off the phone it’s almost eleven thirty, and Taemin has spent the last half hour listening to the murmur of Jonghyun’s voice and trying to figure out how he’s supposed to fit Jonghyun in his bed. Mom lays out blankets and pillows on the living room floor, though, and in the end Taewoo lays himself down on Jonghyun’s other side. For a while everything is soft and sleepy and quiet except for Taemin’s heart, which has started its pounding again somehow.

“Where do you go to school, hyung?” When Jonghyun tells Taewoo someplace Taemin’s never heard of, Taewoo’s face lights up in recognition. “I’ve been there before, for baseball.”

“You play?”

“Short stop. Do you?”

Jonghyun shakes his head so that his hair spills out over his pillow, blacker than black in the darkness. “I hate sports.”

Taewoo laughs. “So does Taeminnie.”

When Taemin retorts, “Dancing is exercise,” Taewoo reaches over Jonghyun to flick the tip of his nose.

Jonghyun backs him up, though, for once. “You should see how long he practices every day. I couldn’t do it, I’d fall apart.”

“That reminds me, how did your thing go?” Taewoo says, propping himself up on his elbow to get a better look at Taemin’s face as he answers. “Your lesson.”

There’s no part of Taemin that doesn’t want to roll over and hide, but he keeps still, and after a few heartbeats he can say almost normally, “I audited it.” From the way Taewoo wrinkles his nose it looks like he doesn’t know that word either. Good. He would never admit it, not to Taemin, but before Jonghyun can butt in, Taemin blusters on, “Does Mom even pay attention when she watches stuff? She kept asking me.”

This time it’s Jonghyun who reaches for him, but it’s only to pet his hair. “It’s like listening to music, Taeminnie. It helps you get through things you have to do, you tune in and out.” He checks Taemin’s face like he’s making sure that went in somewhere, then turns back onto his back, grinning to himself. “Like when Shin Minah is on the screen, and when she’s not.”

What?

“She’s so hot,” Taewoo agrees.

“My girlfriend has that same haircut.”

“What girlfriend?”

It just bursts out of Taemin, out of nowhere. His voice echoes in his own ears, so loud he can barely make out Jonghyun’s laughter. But no one shushes him or reminds him Mom and Dad are sleeping in the next room. Taewoo is too busy asking Jonghyun, “Is there a big difference between second and third year? The girls in my class won’t even look at us.”

Jonghyun half smiles again, half smirks, this look Taemin has never seen on his face before. It hooks weirdly in Taemin’s stomach. “I don’t know, she’s in high school.”

_“Hyung,”_ Taewoo says in awe. Which, what’s so great about dating a noona? And anyway, Jonghyun is like two months away from being in high school himself, and he must be a sucky boyfriend, because he spends every second of his free time at the training center with Taemin.

“It’s just because I’m tall,” Jonghyun says.

“How does that make sense, would she hate you if you were short?” shoots out of Taemin.

“It was a joke, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun tells him carelessly. Then, smile widening, “At this rate I’ll probably end up 180 cm, anyway~”

Taemin sits up to throw his blanket off, go sit in the bathroom and wait until the prickling fades from his skin, but somehow his eyes are glued to Jonghyun’s stupid face. And again, he can’t bite back, “What’s her name?”

“Choi Jiwon,” Jonghyun replies, no hesitation. He narrows his eyes at Taemin, like he thinks he’s read his mind. “Do you think I’m making her up or something?”

Yes. No. How is Taemin supposed to know?

Taemin lies back down, even though the prickling is worse than ever, hot and cold at the same time, numb everywhere. Normally his body is the one thing that goes where he tells it, does what he wants, makes sense to him, but right now nothing does. “How come you never said anything about her?”

“To you?” Jonghyun and Taewoo both laugh. Taemin turns away from Jonghyun and settles onto his side, wrenching as much of the blanket away from Jonghyun as he can, bringing his knees up to his chest. Squeezing his eyes shut. “Aigoo,” Jonghyun sighs behind him. “Like you care about that kind of stuff.”

Taemin curls up tighter. “You’re right, I don’t.”

“Taemin-ah—”

“That hyung from before, the one you were showing around.”

In this voice that tells Taemin he’s being weird, Jonghyun asks, “Jinki?”

“Jinki hyung,” Taemin corrects him. If he is being weird, if there’s this crazy thing that looks but doesn’t feel like a smile creeping onto his face, Jonghyun can’t see it, anyway. “He’s in high school, too. He told me.”

“Wait, what?”

“I don’t know if it’s better to let him figure it out,” Taemin goes on. “Maybe he never will?”

“He will at some point,” Jonghyun almost snaps. Almost. “Taemin-ah~”

The thing on his face is growing, and there’s a second thing bubbling up inside him, too hot to touch, too bright to see, so Taemin pulls the blanket over his chin and burrows in. All he has to say to Jonghyun is, “I guess you look old.”

“Good luck finding someone who’d even think to call you hyung,” Jonghyun retorts, and that’s all the warning Taemin gets before Jonghyun’s hand finds his side under the blanket, fingers tickling under Taemin’s rib cage. Taemin flinches, jerking more of the blanket away and flopping onto his stomach. From a million miles off Taewoo chimes in that anyone who would is still a baby, they can’t talk yet. Jonghyun scoots closer, but he doesn’t try it again, and now that he should be telling him to go share Taewoo’s blanket instead, Taemin’s voice has deserted him.

“I told him I have perfect pitch,” Jonghyun tells Taemin after the longest time has passed.

Maybe it’s only been a minute.

“Do you?”

“Taemin-ah~”

Is that a stupid question or something? Must be. And just like that, that smile is back, for real this time.

_You’re lucky it was him, hyung. If you tell him you lied he’ll probably forget you ever said it._

Taemin won’t forget what Jinki told him, though, even if it turns out to be lies in the end. Jinki meant it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fudged the air dates on A Love to Kill a little, but it was the closest I could get to putting Onew and a Rain drama in the same chapter. When we get to 2007 I am definitely going to have the opposite problem, haha – so many classics, so few excuses to mention them.


	4. Both Sides

“Like this, Taemin-ah?”

Jinki cranes to catch Taemin’s eye without moving a muscle in the rest of his body. Taemin does that for him, wedging his foot between Jinki’s to space them further apart, adjusting the line of his body, grabbing his arms and putting them in the right place. At this point, all he can do is hope that Jinki’s body remembers where everything goes, since he’s given up on Jinki’s brain. Jinki is so good at school, he always knows the answer if Taemin asks him about his homework, and he reads the kind of book for fun that would put Taemin to sleep. He probably knows the lyrics to a hundred songs, too. If someone had told Taemin that it would take them a whole month of work just to get Jinki to pass his first dance evals, he probably would’ve thought they were lying. That or figured that he’s the problem.

Maybe he is?

“What about this?”

Jonghyun. Last time Taemin checked, he was over laughing with Junmyeon and the other hyungs, but he whirls around in time to catch Jonghyun flailing his arms, tripping over himself, careening into Jinki and knocking a laugh out of him. It’s okay if Taemin’s laughing too, right? He’s not the only one, so is the hyung next to them, the new one with the scar on his eyebrow. He’s way less scary looking with his face split into a smile, earbud dangling out of one ear, eyes staring right into Taemin’s.

Staring back.

Too late, Taemin cuts his eyes away, nailing them to the floor instead, ears going hot and tingly.

“Do that for evals. It shows individuality, that’s good,” Jinki is telling Jonghyun.

“SM isn’t the kind of company where it doesn’t matter if you’re standing out for negative reasons. They’re not that desperate.” Suddenly there’s a finger in Taemin’s side. He doesn’t have to look up to know it’s Jonghyun’s. “Anyway, I was asking Taeminnie.”

“I have to pee,” comes out of Taemin’s mouth. More like, _I have to go somewhere else for a while until I stop being stupid. It was five seconds, it wasn’t that bad, he probably doesn’t even care, so why do I have to._

The hyung next to them laughs out loud. Taemin’s eyes flit to him again, totally without his permission. “That’s your answer, right there. I hope you’re a good singer.”

“He’s the best,” Taemin blurts out, before he remembers Jinki, lying on his stomach on the floor. “Tied for best.”

The hyung just looks at him. “I was kidding.”

“Oh.”

Taemin can just add that to his list of reasons why he’s stupid. Hopefully he’ll be stupid enough to forget them all by the time he reaches the bathroom.

“Go on, Taemin-ah,” Jinki says, voice muffled in his arms. “Go pee. Give hyung some time to get back up.”

“We’ve only gone through it a few times so far, hyung.”

“Try twenty,” Jinki corrects him. “Or twenty million. Shit.”

“Go on,” Jonghyun says, settling down next to Jinki and reaching up to pat Taemin’s butt. “Don’t worry, hyung will keep an eye on him while you’re gone, make sure he doesn’t die.”

He gives Taemin like two seconds to do what he’s told before he swats his butt again, hard enough to jar Taemin’s muscles back into place and get his legs moving. They carry him as far as the door, but just as he reaches for the handle, someone opens it from outside, sending Taemin stumbling back. Minho. He steadies Taemin with one firm hand, tells him, “Watch where you’re walking, Taemin-ah, okay?” and then steps past him before Taemin can even think to tell him, _You watch where you walk, too,_ or something else he would never actually say.

The first couple times Taemin saw him around the training center, he thought he must be a foreigner, his eyes were so big. If he’d told Minho what he was thinking then, that his Korean was really really good, maybe Minho would have told him, “Yours is too?”

Yeah. Most of the time it’s probably better if Taemin doesn’t talk.

Taemin takes his time washing his hands, avoiding his own eyes in the mirror. He already knows what he’ll see, and every time he looks at it, he hates it even more. He’s just lucky Mom waited to cut all his hair off until school let out. Until he’s ready to debut the program probably wouldn’t even care if he shaved it all off, and the only person here who’s even noticed is Jonghyun, one of the million times he went to pet Taemin’s head, rubbing his palm over the bristles. He told Taemin it felt weird. Not in a good way, Taemin is pretty sure, not this time. And now it has less than a month to grow back, or else he’ll be screwed. He’s going to middle school, not the military.

At least it doesn’t get in his eyes when he’s dancing? And when he splashes water on his face, it doesn’t end up plastered to his skin. Whatever. If he doesn’t hurry up and get back to the practice room Jinki will ask him if he pooped or something. Or worse, he’ll have started again without Taemin there to show him the steps. If he does it wrong once Taemin has to show him the right way like five million times to get it to stick.

Taemin twists the faucet off and shoulders his way out the door….and almost walks straight into Jonghyun. Jonghyun takes him by the shoulders and turns him back around before he can even think.

“Let’s go, Taemin-ah. I’m going crazy in here, I need fresh air.”

Where are they going?

“It’s lunch time,” Jonghyun reminds him, steering him down the hallway.

Already? Taemin twists free. “I was gonna go up to the roof.”

Jonghyun frowns at him. “With Jinki hyung again?”

It’s not like Taemin is ditching him, when Jonghyun would probably rather sit with his friends than with a dongsaeng, anyway. Besides, Taemin doesn’t go up there just to eat. Sometimes he even lets Jinki go on ahead and get first dibs on all the food, then lingers at the door to the roof to listen to Jinki sing, watching him, burning everything into his brain to copy later when he’s sure there’s no one around to hear him. And when that gets too weird, he sits with him and asks stupid questions about technique between bites, and Jinki always answers them. He makes a lot more sense to Taemin than Vocal Ssaem, and he never looks at Taemin like Jonghyun is looking at him right now, eyes narrowing, mouth thinning, this expression that twists Taemin’s stomach up in knots.

“You can come if you want,” Taemin forces himself to say, even though he can’t force himself to mean it. He can picture the faces Jonghyun might make if he asked him half the stupid things he asks Jinki, and he’d rather die than see any of them. _Taemin-ah~. Don’t you pay attention in lessons at all?_ Or worse, _Slow down, Taeminnie. Technique won’t start making more sense until you can use it._

But right now Jonghyun is making his Taeminnie-is-being-difficult face, and his hands are firm, closing around Taemin’s shoulders, turning him around once more.

“I’ll buy you lunch, come on.”

Just then a voice cracks through the air, so loud it jars Taemin’s bones. “YOU FUCKING CLEAN IT UP!”

He freezes, but Jonghyun doesn’t, half-dragging Taemin down the hall while he’s still trying to remember how his legs work, shouting echoing behind them.

“You could’ve just told me if there was a fight,” Taemin says. “I’m not a baby, I can handle that much.”

“I can’t,” Jonghyun says shortly, “they’re both being so dumb, and it’s just going to get dumber. Please, Taeminnie. You can pick where to go, wherever you want.” He squeezes Taemin’s shoulder. “Tteokbokki? Ramyun?”

“Jinki hyung.”

“What about him?” Jonghyun replies impatiently as the next round explodes behind them. “I think he can find the cafeteria on his own, Taemin-ah.”

Or he’ll go up to the roof and wait for Taemin to come, and when Taemin doesn’t, he’ll be left up there with too much food, and then maybe the lady who weighs them every week will tell him he’s too fat to debut again. Taemin wriggles free of Jonghyun’s grip one more. Jonghyun lets him go easily enough, but when Taemin tries, “He can pay for both of us,” he just puts that same look from before back on his face.

“I said I would.” But the words are barely out of Jonghyun’s mouth before he relents. “Fine. I’ll go get him really quick. You wait here, okay? You don’t want to get in the middle, believe me.”

Before Taemin can reply, Jonghyun is off, half-walking, half-sprinting down the hallway, back hunched like he’s going into a warzone. Taemin just stands there and watches him, all the words he can’t figure out how to say gnawing at his stomach.

_Did I say something wrong, hyung? Or do something wrong, or something? If I did, just tell me next time._

If he did it’s not because he meant to. He never does. He’s so tired of getting things wrong in front of Jonghyun. 

Getting Jonghyun wrong.

Jinki does pay, but only for kimbap in the convenience store down the street. Taemin should’ve left him up on the roof and made Jonghyun get him real food, but instead he makes sure that Jinki gets some tuna mayo for Jonghyun and then sits at the counter between them and stuffs his face. Jonghyun picks rice off Taemin’s face and talks to Jinki over his head, and when they get back, he ruffles Taemin’s hair and walks away without asking what time he’s going home. He already knows, anyway. Since break started they’ve both come in as soon as the doors opened and left when the janitors started to lock up.

Jinki tells Taemin, “If you get hungry later, come find me again. Hyung will buy you dinner.”

More kimbap?

“It’s okay, there’ll be stuff at home.”

And then Taemin’s on his own again. Well, not really. Enunciation lessons are never one-on-one. Taemin’s not sure if that’d waste less of his time, or if he’s fine sitting here for forty minutes listening to the others rattling off tongue twisters and Ssaem’s heels clicking as she paces, since she always forgets to call on him. Today she takes a call midway through, stepping out to take it and telling them to continue without her.

Which they don’t. The class erupts into chatter around him, and this should be Taemin’s chance to try it without anyone listening, if he could just make himself take it. The words swim on the page and his throat tightens, and before he can even open his mouth, the hyung sitting next to him clicks his tongue and takes the paper from him, flattening it onto the desktop, probably because they have to share it and Taemin was crinkling it up.

Or because, “They re-use these, Taemin-ah. How would you like it if it was like this when we got it?”

They barely ever talk, but whenever they do, it’s always Minho telling him off. You shouldn’t do this. Don’t do that. Be careful, Taemin-ah.

“Sorry, hyung,” Taemin says dully.

He should probably be trying harder to mean it, but Minho glances up at him, pausing midway through ironing the paper with his palm. “Don’t be. I’m just telling you so that next time you’ll know.”

“I’ll probably forget, though.”

Taemin’s just being honest, but maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because for a second there Minho’s expression teeters. Taemin thinks that maybe he’s in for round two, but then Minho’s shoulders relax and his mouth crooks unwillingly, and he reaches up to pinch Taemin’s cheek, a little too hard.

“Just sit next to me again, then.” He hesitates, searching Taemin’s face. For what, Taemin doesn’t know. “Did I seem like I was mad, just now?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wasn’t,” Minho insists, like Taemin just said yes. “It’s just, the rules are what they are for a reason, you know?”

Taemin already said he was sorry. What else is there? He props his head up on his fist, waiting for the teacher to come back already, waiting for Minho to go on, but then Minho drops it instead, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Taemin out of the corner of his eye and waiting for his reply. Which means Taemin’s stuck, he has to think of something.

He thinks about all the points he’s gotten off on math tests for taking shortcuts instead of showing all five billion steps, even on the problems he actually managed to solve. He thinks about the way his dad’s breath smells when he comes home on the nights his boss makes the whole office go out drinking with him. He thinks about the looks he can put on Jonghyun’s face but can never figure out how to take off. The one from this morning, for example. Did he think Taemin was calling him poor or something? Which, how could he? He’s seen where Taemin lives.

“Not always,” Taemin says finally. “And sometimes that reason is stupid, anyway.”

That sounds so much worse when he says it out loud, because what if Minho thinks he means Minho was being stupid just now, but Minho’s too busy telling him, “Well, a lot of times it isn’t,” to care about that. Again, he hesitates, before going on casually, “Like, for example, seniority. You’re supposed to listen to sunbaes, and you should too, because they know what they’re talking about. Okay, they can be dicks, but most of the time, when they set you straight on something, that’s called looking after you. That’s how you learn to fit in.”

To survive, Jonghyun would probably say. As for Taemin, he’s been here longer than half the hyungs, and he’s never told anyone anything. They’ve never asked, either, except for Jinki, and except for him, Taemin wouldn’t even want them to. 

“When did you join the company, hyung?” Taemin asks. It always takes him forever to remember faces and even longer to remember names, and since he knows both for Minho, it’s probably been a long time. Still…

Just as, “Before me?” pops out of Taemin’s mouth without his permission, Minho says, “Before him, that’s for sure.”

Wait, who?

Minho must see the question on Taemin’s face, but he ignores it, sighing, “Aigoo,” and reaching up to pinch Taemin’s cheek again. “I would listen to you if you ever said anything.” As the paper starts to curl up on the desk again, he slaps his hand over it. “Not with this, though. It’s not yours, Taemin-ah, it’s the program’s. Disrespecting their things is like disrespecting them.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be, I said,” Minho replies. Then, for what feels like the millionth time, “Do I really seem mad? Be honest.”

“The first time you said it, you did,” Taemin blurts out. “Kind of.”

“I just talk loud.”

Taemin didn’t say he yelled or anything. Just…

“It’s the look on your face, too, hyung. Like…”

All Taemin has to do is bug his eyes, and Minho’s saying, “Yah, I can’t even make that expression,” voice rising, eyes widening indignantly, and that’s the face, right there, at least until Minho loses his fight with his smile.

“I can’t read people, hyung.” Taemin only says it to be safe, but somehow he ends up meaning it. If he could make that face Jonghyun made, what would Jonghyun say? Probably nothing, unless he asked Taemin if something was wrong. “You’re better off asking someone else.”

“I was annoyed,” Minho admits all in a rush, almost like Taemin cornered him into it. “Annoyed, not mad. And just a little.” He clears his throat, smoothing his palm over the paper one final time before he thrusts it at Taemin. “Anyway, forget people, go back to reading this. You’re up soon and you still need practice.”

If she remembers Taemin exists. Maybe Minho will remind her now, though. He would.

Taemin holds the paper carefully and opens his mouth again, and this time when the words squeeze down to nothing, he forces them out anyway.

The rest of the week passes like normal. The next week, too. Somehow it’s easier to set his alarm at night when it’s for training and not school, even if it’s just as hard to wake up to it. Each day feels a little more like spring, blue skies and sunshine, birds chirping and leaves sighing and the bugs singing, which Taemin can live with as long as they don’t come anywhere near him, until he can forget his jacket without Mom scolding him when he gets home. He keeps forgetting his lunchbox on the kitchen counter, too, but Jinki always gives him half of his. And at night, if Jonghyun doesn’t come to get Taemin, Taemin goes to get him instead of waiting to see if Jonghyun would ever forget and leave without him.

Forget and pass out in the vocal room, more like.

The only not normal thing is the hyung with the scar. He’s almost always late to lessons, slipping in after the music’s already started and stealing a spot close to the front, and Ssaem never even yells at him for it. Taemin heard another hyung say he was a gangster, a legend in Daegu for beating up thirteen guys at once, but that was just stupid. What would that kind of person be doing here in the practice room every day, staying just as late as Taemin, dancing just as hard, sweating just as much? When they’re practicing different songs, he always puts in his earbuds and lets Taemin have the sound system. He’s good, too. Maybe better than Taemin at some stuff.

When Taemin asked Jonghyun, he told him his name was Kim Kibum, like the Super Junior member.

Finally, on one of those nights, after they’ve sweated and danced and Taemin slides down onto the floor instead of starting the music again, Kibum rips one earbud out of his ears and asks him, “Why do you stay so late all the time?”

Taemin struggles to sit up, just enough so that he’s talking to Kibum and not the ceiling. “Why do you?”

And just enough so that he can see Kibum’s eyes flash as he snaps, “Whatever.” Which, what? Taemin heaves himself the rest of the way up as Kibum goes on like he can’t stop himself, “I’m a trainee, same as you, you know. We both probably have the same reasons. I only asked you because you’re a kid.”

“I’m fourteen,” Taemin retorts, even though New Year was only a month back and his birthday isn’t until July.

This time when Kibum stares him down Taemin doesn’t let himself look away. Just a few seconds like that, though, and Kibum blinks first, mouth twisting into something like a smile.

“And you know how to get yourself home? Aigoo. There are creepers on the train, you know. They’re not just after girls.”

“I take a bus.”

“Aigooooo,” Kibum sighs again. He hesitates, then lowers himself onto the floor across from Taemin, leaning back on his hands and stretching his legs out with a groan. “I have to take one, too. Back to Daegu.”

Tonight? Suddenly ten p.m. seems so much later than it did.

“Do you go and come back every day?”

Maybe that was a stupid question. It makes Kibum sigh again, then flop onto his back like his strings have been cut.

“It’s really not going to work,” Kibum tells the ceiling. “I thought if I was determined enough, anything would. If the dorms are full I’ll have to go live with my aunt.” He pauses. “Actually, maybe I’ll just go live with her anyway.”

When SM first drew up Taemin’s contract, they asked him to consider dorming rather than living at home, and his parents spent a whole week arguing about it when he was supposed to be asleep. He never told him about the bottomless pit that opened up in his stomach at the idea or the way it kept him up at night, staring into it, but he did tell them he would rather not sign at all than move out. He’s still not sure if that was a lie or not.

He’s also not sure what he’s supposed to say, because Kibum’s parents are back in Daegu and that’s all useless. “Why?” seems like the safest option until Kibum levers himself onto his elbow just to throw Taemin another look.

“You haven’t noticed?”

“What?”

“That everybody is avoiding me?” Kibum says, like it’s beyond obvious. To anyone else, it probably would be.

“I’m not,” Taemin says helpfully, scooting closer before he can second-guess himself.

“You only talk to like two people anyway, so I wasn’t sure.” Kibum’s expression flickers, or maybe that’s just the lights. “I got in a fight. Not with fists or anything, I’m not about that. We just used words.”

Oh. _Oh._

“That was you?”

“I didn't start it,” Kibum says a little too quickly. Taemin is fine with that explanation, but Kibum looks like he’s not. Finally he goes on, “Whenever I talk people look at me weird. My mom said it would happen, she told me to try and drop saturi while I was up here, but that just made me mad. And now that it turns out she was right, it just makes me madder.” He snorts. “It’s not like it’s hard to sound like you guys, you know. I just never thought it was hard to sound like me, either, up until now.”

He’s not the only one in the training program not from Seoul. The first time Taemin heard saturi outside of TV was here, he’s pretty sure. Kind of. Except for all the times he went to visit his grandma up in the countryside, but he was like five, he can barely remember it.

“Teach me how to swear,” comes out of Taemin’s mouth, ahead of all that.

He’d only use it on Taewoo, and only when normal swearing wasn’t strong enough, but Kibum just laughs at him and says, “Ask me when you’re fifteen,” before circling right back around. “It’s like…we all signed the same contract, so where did he get off, pushing me around? I’m pretty sure we’re the same age.”

Who, the hyung he fought with?

“We go by seniority here,” Taemin informs him.

Kibum tries to hide his surprise, but it’s all over his face, and it’s in his voice when he asks too-casually, “Not age? Weird.”

“That too. No one calls me sunbae.”

“You must be starting middle school this year, huh.”

Taemin doesn’t need Kibum to tell him that, but he did, and now his stomach is crushing in on itself, and somehow, “I wish I could just drop out already,” comes shooting up his throat. And then it’s, “My mom cut all my hair off,” which is even worse.

“Looks fine to me?” is all Kibum has to say to any of that. “Short hair is in these days.”

Now it’s Taemin’s turn to hit the floor. He rolls onto his stomach and hides in his face in his arms.

“I’m not even going to know anyone.” _I’m only telling you because you don’t know me._ “It wouldn’t matter if I did, anyway.”

“Yeah, I know how that feels,” Kibum replies, probably thinking about the program again. He’s not a gangster, but he doesn’t look like the type to get bullied, either, at least not to Taemin. But then he tells Taemin, “I wish I could tell you that middle school doesn’t suck, but it does. Big time. Just don’t let their bullshit rule your life, okay?”

Taemin will just have to try not to. He’ll try really, really hard.

When he checks to see if it’s safe, Kibum meets his eyes like it’s nothing. Taemin meets his, too, for once. The longer he looks the easier it gets. The easier Kibum does too, half-smiling down at him.

“Training doesn’t suck,” Taemin tells him. He’s surprised by how much he means it. “Really. They’ll forget about it, hyung, they have to. They’ve all fought over stupid shit before.”

“What stupid shit?” Jonghyun. By the time Taemin’s struggled upright, Jonghyun’s there, standing over him with a hand outstretched, ready to pull him onto his feet. “Time to go, Taeminnie.”

Taemin forgets all about Kibum for one second, just until he catches the look on his face, the way his mouth is crooking up, _and you know how to get yourself home? Aigoo._

“We just take the same bus,” he blusters, before Kibum can even say anything. Jonghyun makes another one of those faces at Taemin, but Kibum’s making one too, stealing glance between Taemin and Jonghyun, shifting his weight, scratching the back of his neck. Even Taemin knows the answer to it. “What time does yours leave, hyung?”

This time it’s Jonghyun who’s stuck paying for two people. Even so, he lets Taemin get ramyun instead of kimbap, and ends up giving him half of his. Kibum does too. They don’t need to roll Taemin out of the store, whatever Jonghyun says, and in the end they have to run half a block to catch their bus before it leaves without them. They left Kibum back at the corner, headed the way Taemin used to go, back when he actually did get himself home. He had to take the subway to get to the bus station, and from there, the bus to Daegu, and then probably another bus to his house. And then he’ll probably set his alarm even earlier than Taemin, do that all again, and still get there a little later.

“Tired?”

Jonghyun nudges Taemin’s shoulder when he doesn’t answer right away, even though on other nights that would be answer enough. Instead of curling into the window and closing his eyes, Taemin glances up at him, watching the shadows play across Jonghyun’s face as the bus picks up speed. Only the ones under his eyes stay where they are, heavy and dark.

_Are you tired, hyung?_

Should Taemin even be asking, when he doesn’t need to? It was after ten when they left the convenience store and they’re still a million stops from their own, and Jonghyun’s day is written all over his face. Still…

“When does school start for you?” Jonghyun tries again, before Taemin can try at all. Taemin gives up and thunks his head against the window, trying to get that one word out of it. School school school school. After Kibum, too. “Sorry, Taemin-ah. Hyung made you think about it.” He pauses, then nudges Taemin again. Taemin pushes back a little too hard, but Jonghyun doesn’t even seem to feel it. “Have you gotten your uniform?”

“Taewoo hyung’s old one,” Taemin says dully.

Taewoo was taller than Taemin at this age, so they had to take the sleeves and legs up. Taewoo thought that was funny, even if no one else did.

“That’s the best thing about having a noona, I always get new stuff.” Taemin catches Jonghyun’s smile in the corner of his eye, and he has to smush his cheek into the glass to stop his face from smiling back, at least until Jonghyun goes on, “You’d probably look cute in hers, but I’d look like a monster.” If that was a joke it wasn’t funny, and if it wasn’t one, then it was really, really weird, but Jonghyun squishes his thumb into Taemin’s other cheek, just like normal. “You’ll look cute in his, too.”

It’s not even about how Taemin will look. “I just don’t get the point of wearing one.”

Jonghyun laughs shortly. “There is none, it’s school.”

Jonghyun never bothers putting his tie and jacket back on after practice, just squashes them into his bag, and half the time he just wears his sweats home. Taemin will probably end up doing the same, and then maybe someday he can just forget his uniform in his locker in the training room and leave it there forever.

Yeah, right. His hair would probably grow back before they let him out of detention.

“I learn more at training, anyway,” Taemin says.

Jonghyun takes his time replying to that, until finally he tells Taemin what he already knows. “It’s only useful if you make it, Taemin-ah.”

“And school is useful if I don’t, right?”

Which means it’s not useful at all. There won’t be much left of Taemin by then, since he’s put every single thing he has into training. The last thing he feels like doing is watching the way Jonghyun’s mouth twists at those words, and the second to last is letting Jonghyun see the expression fighting its way onto his face, so he stares out into the blue of the night, ignoring Jonghyun’s eyes burning into his face.

“Help me the way you help Jinki hyung.”

Taemin forgets himself, twisting around to look at Jonghyun, blurting out, “What?”

“With my dancing,” Jonghyun says. “I’m never going to be good, but I have to get as close as I can, or I’ll have no chance.”

What is he even talking about?

“You’re not that bad, hyung.”

“Not as bad as him,” Jonghyun agrees impatiently.

Before he can even think, Taemin’s defending Jinki. “He’s getting better.”

That’s not even a lie, he is. Kind of.

“And he’ll be better than me pretty soon, thanks to you.” Is he mad at Taemin or something? What did Taemin even do? Maybe he should have said Jonghyun was good, maybe hearing “bad” made Jonghyun forget the not part. When Taemin sneaks a glance at him, Jonghyun catches his eyes, holds them, jaw locked like he’s worrying the inside of his cheek or something. “I’m asking for help, Taeminnie. That’s not a joke to me, so don’t treat it like one, okay?”

_Do you see me laughing?_

Taemin just barely bites it back, hot and angry. No matter what he says or does, it’s Jonghyun who makes no sense. He forgot that for a second. He squashes himself against the window again, wishing he had his headphones so that he could pretend he was listening to music, wishing Jonghyun wasn’t long past falling for that. Instead he screws his eyes shut.

Moments pass. The world outside Taemin’s window goes still and the doors sigh open. This isn’t their stop, but pretty soon they’ll be the only ones left stuck on this bus, and Jonghyun is so warm and solid pressed against his side, and his stomach is twisting up and he doesn’t even get why. All he knows is that he’d probably rather jump off the roof than ask Jonghyun to come up there and teach him how to sing, just thinking about it is bad enough, whereas maybe Jonghyun’s been sitting on those words every day on the ride home, turning them over and over in his head. It’s just, with Jinki, it’s different. Jinki is different. He never asked for Taemin’s help, any more than Taemin asked for his. It just kind of happened.

“I didn’t,” he says finally, when it’s that or go crazy. “I wouldn’t.”

Almost before he can finish, “Are you mad at me again?” comes rushing out of Jonghyun. “Don’t be mad, Taemin-ah. Sorry I said it like that.” He gives Taemin like two seconds to respond, then reaches up to pet his head, like Taemin still has hair. “Hmm? Taemin-ah~”

What is Taemin supposed to do with him?

“I can show you some stuff on the way home,” he offers.

The smile Jonghyun rewards him with is blinding, before he hides it behind his fist.

“What is this? You have time for Jinki hyung during practice but not for me. Does he pay you with food, is that why you’re always eating together? Then I’ve been paying you since last summer. You owe me by now.”

“I just meant for tonight.”

“And then tomorrow at practice,” Jonghyun says. “After dance lessons or something, that way everything will still be fresh. Or maybe not? Whatever time is good for you.”

There’s no good or bad time. With Jinki, Taemin does all the same things he would have done alone, he just does it a million times more than he used to, just keeps on dancing until he and Jinki are both drenched in sweat and Jinki’s movements finally mirror his. Jonghyun probably won’t take as long, but maybe he’ll push Taemin farther than he would have gotten on his own, make him work even harder to stay ahead.

Taemin should probably be warning Jonghyun, “Just because I’m a good dancer doesn’t mean I’m a good teacher. I can show you things, but I can’t explain anything that well. I just kind of do it.”

Jonghyun doesn’t care, though. “I can’t ask Ssaem, he doesn’t do separate lessons. It’s good enough for Jinki hyung, anyway.”

“I’m just telling you now so you don’t get mad later.”

“At you?”

Jonghyun laughs at the thought, like the last few minutes didn’t just happen. Taemin would be okay if they didn’t, so he doesn’t push it, just says as carefully as he can, “It always makes me mad when I can’t do something, is all.”

_There’s always this part of me that doesn’t even want to try. I hate it._

Jonghyun’s smile has barely faded. “I know.”

What Taemin said out loud, maybe, but not what he didn’t.

“I’m never mad at you, either, I just act like it,” he just barely gets out, but on the other side he breathes easier. “Because I’m weird, I guess.”

Jonghyun is the one who told him that in the first place, but he tells Taemin now, “You’re complicated.” He reaches up to scrub his palm over Taemin’s hair, too-short bangs threaded through his fingers, hand all big and warm. “Who would’ve thought there’s so much going on in there~”

Right now there’s nothing, just a big echoing blank. When he’s not tired and sore and just trying to keep up with Jonghyun, though, when he’s on every other part of the day besides the bus ride home…

“I don’t even understand most of it.”

Jonghyun rubs his palm over Taemin’s forehead and then takes his hand away. “It’s okay, hyung does.”

If he says so.

The light turns green and the bus groans to life once again, rumbling beneath Taemin’s feet. Next stop is Dongdaemun. Taemin hasn’t been to the night market since he was like five, but half the bus will probably get off there.

“You didn’t fill up, right?” Jonghyun says out of nowhere. He smiles at Taemin. “You want to see if we can find the bottom of your stomach?”

“What if there isn’t one? You’ll go broke.” _It’s fine, there’ll be something at home,_ he almost adds, but it’s a weeknight, which means he’ll say goodbye to Jonghyun in the street, and then Jonghyun will go home and eat ramyun or something. Taemin hesitates. “Are you still hungry?”

Jonghyun hesitates too, eyeing Taemin. “I can’t eat in front of people I don’t know. Food stops tasting like anything.”

“You don’t know Kibum hyung?” Taemin says, at a loss.

“I do and I don’t. Whatever.”

_But you know me._

The bus rolls to a stop once more, doors wheezing open. All around them people gather their things and rise to their feet, and the bus driver cranes back to check as the bus slowly empties out, probably hoping against hope that he can end his route early tonight. His heart probably leaps when Jonghyun gets up and steps into the aisle. Taemin’s lurches. By the time he thinks to glance back at Taemin, Taemin’s feet have moved on their own, edging past Jonghyun’s empty seat, carrying him towards the side door. He jumps down onto the sidewalk after Jonghyun, into the night. The street lights wink down at them, brighter than the moon and the stars, and the bus sputters to life behind them. Taemin just stands there and watches his night roll away with it, the homework he was supposed to do, the six hours of sleep he’s dying to get, the food his mom would’ve warmed up for him. When Jonghyun closes his hand over his wrist, Taemin lets himself be pulled into the crowd, grease and steam and a million different smells, all designed to make Taemin’s stomach growl.

“I thought you might ask the bus driver if he wanted to come,” Jonghyun tells him.

“Why would he want to?”

Jonghyun laughs, that one ragged, breathless laugh that means Taemin caught him by his surprise, said something even stupider than normal. Weirder. Jonghyun tightens his grip on Taemin’s wrist, threading his way through the crush of people, drunk ahjussis, couples on dates, ahjummas shouting out their wares from each stall they pass.

“If you see something that looks good, tell me,” Jonghyun throws over his shoulder. “Whatever you want.”

Whatever Taemin wants? He’s not here for that, though. He’s here so that Jonghyun won’t ruffle his hair and tell him, _I’ll just make ramyun or something when I get home._

“Real food,” Taemin blurts out. “Kimchi stew.”

Maybe he’s being weird? But who cares if he is. Jonghyun flashes him a smile, bright, dizzying.

“I know a place.”

He tugs Taemin along. Taemin isn’t five, he can keep up and he’s not scared of getting separated, but maybe Jonghyun is, who knows. Taemin wishes he did.

Kimchi stew, though. Real food. Jonghyun’s hand, warm and firm, his crinkled up eyes, that laugh from earlier, not to mention the dance steps Jonghyun would kill to learn from him. He knows all that.

And that the thing on Jonghyun’s face is a smile, the same one that’s on Taemin’s. He knows that, too.


	5. Test

Even with the May air sticking to Taemin’s skin and Jonghyun’s eyes boring into the top of his head, the kimchi stew tastes the same as it always does. Sometimes Taemin wonders if his mom’s will start to taste weird, he and Jonghyun have come here so much, but that’s probably stupid. Training feels like his whole life, but his first day was barely a year ago.

“Kibummie said you two saw Super Junior sunbaenims when they visited the training center,” Jonghyun says. “Be honest, who’s better looking, me or them~?”

This is Jonghyun’s third try. First it was, _Did your mom dye her hair after all? Last time she was back to telling me she would._ But last time was this week, just a few days ago, and anyway, Taemin couldn’t even see the grey in her hair before she said anything, so how would he be able to tell the difference? Before he could say any of that out loud Jonghyun moved on. _Tell me when this stops tasting good and starts tasting boring, I know a lot of other places here. If you find something good, you’re the type to eat it over and over again, right?_

Jonghyun is the type to ask over and over. It’s never the same question, and Taemin never has the right answer.

“They all look different,” Taemin goes with in the end. It’s the truth, at least kind of – he remembers Heechul’s shoes way better than his face, since raising his eyes to his was way too scary - but he doesn’t even have to look to know the look that probably put on Jonghyun’s face, wide-eyed with fake outrage. His next bite burns his tongue and scalds his throat, sending his whole body hot. Someone laughs at the next table over.

Jonghyun pushes his foot into Taemin’s under the table, red plastic chair creaking as he leans forward and lowers his head, craning to catch Taemin’s eye. He looks so stupid, especially when he smiles at Taemin and says, “What about school?”

Taemin goes back to his stew.

“Shitty, huh.” Jonghyun doesn’t sound like he’s guessing. “Is it just because it’s school, or is it worse than that?”

There is nothing worse than that.

“I don’t know,” Taemin says through a mouthful of rice. Before Jonghyun can think of his next question, he rushes to add, “What about you?”

Somehow he ends up meaning it. Taemin is bad at people and no matter how hard he tries he’ll never be good at Jonghyun, but if he looks hard enough he notices things. Like the circles under Jonghyun’s eyes. Or the way he talks even more when he’s tired, talking and talking and talking. When he sneaks a glance at Jonghyun he gets caught in a second.

“I don’t know,” Jonghyun tells him. He narrows his eyes at Taemin. “What, hyung can’t say it back?” He sighs, propping his head up on his fist. “Tell me something and I’ll tell you something. Seriously. Ask me anything, and I’ll answer.”

All the somethings Taemin can think of, he’d rather die than say out loud. Still…

“Half my class doesn’t even believe that I’m a trainee,” he says to his food. “The ones who do think I’m lying about training at SM.” It’s so hard to get those words out, but then somehow, “I wish I hadn’t told anyone,” comes rushing out after them.

_Then I could be normal._

“I guess they haven’t seen you dance?”

“No, but they’ve seen me,” comes out of Taemin’s mouth next.

Jonghyun laughs, but it’s not at Taemin. It’s that breathless, ragged one that means he’s at a loss. Next thing he knows Jonghyun’s hand is in his hair, petting his head clumsily. “They’re jealous, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun informs him, like Taemin is stupid enough to believe that. “There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s them.”

“I know I’m not ugly.”

“But you don’t know how pretty you are,” Jonghyun says. “Seriously?”

Taemin does. How could he not, when grown-ups have told him that all his life, from his mom to the ahjumma who lives on the floor below them to the noonas who came to look at him when word got out in the neighborhood that he’d gotten in to SM. Even Heechul sunbaenim told him, _I’ve heard about you, you’re the one who’s supposed to be my clone. Don’t be like me, be good, okay? The angel version of me~._

He also knows that when he looks in the mirror he just sees himself staring back. Maybe if he could see himself through Jonghyun’s eyes he’d look less short and skinny and plain, or maybe those things would look cute somehow? Everything does to Jonghyun. If he saw himself through his classmates’, though, he’d probably look shorter and skinnier and plainer.

“It’s my turn to ask now,” Taemin says out loud, except he has no idea what. The breeze picks up and the yellow awning flaps lazily overhead, and the night market buzzes all around them, couple after couple after couple passing them by, if they don’t squeeze behind Jonghyun and call out their order to the ahjumma behind the counter. Jonghyun sits and eats and traps Taemin in the corner of his eye, until finally Taemin blurts out, “When do you go on dates?”

Jonghyun blinks. “What?”

Taemin’s face burns, and before he can stop himself he’s explaining like an idiot, “You said you had a girlfriend, that one time,” and then, like an even bigger on, “You said I could ask anything. Unless you broke up or something? Forget I said that. Sorry, it just came out like that.”

Jonghyun doesn’t even laugh at him, his face splitting into this weird half-smile half-frown. “Why would we break up? Because all I do is train?”

If they’re not, fine. Taemin was just saying, just in case that was it. All he meant was, “We go home together every night, hyung. And you always eat with me. If you ate with her too you’d get fat.”

Jonghyun laughs again, and this time it is at him. “You think that’s all dating is, taking someone out to dinner? Then I guess I’m dating you, too~.”

Taemin’s face flames. Feeling rushing in and out, skin buzzing, voice climbing, words jumbling up in his mouth, he hears himself say, “I didn’t say that, I’m not stupid, I’ve had a girlfriend before.”

“When you were five, right?” Jonghyun smirks at him. “You can ask me about girls, Taemin-ah. Taewoo doesn’t look like he knows anything.”

“I don’t care about that stuff, I was just wondering,” Taemin says quickly. “Just forget it.”

Jonghyun makes another weird face, like he’s swallowing something really big, before he tells Taemin, “Ask me something else, then.”

Anything?

_What do you know about girls?_

Nope. Then Taemin would have to go back to wishing he were dead.

_You mentioned you have a noona, another time. How much older is she than you? No, what’s her name? Where do you live? You’ve been to my house a hundred times but I’ve never even seen yours. How come you know everything about me, but I barely know anything about you? You keep asking but you don’t even need to._

_You could just tell me stuff, too. You do, a lot, but I mean important stuff._

Suddenly Jonghyun says, “We had a fight.”

Huh? Oh. “You and your girlfriend?”

Jonghyun doesn’t look up from his food. “Mm.”

Taemin hesitates, unsure. Crosses his legs. Rubs his eyes. Scratches his neck. Drags his chair in to let people past, scraping it across the cement until the table reminds him of each breath he takes, pressing into his stomach. Maybe that’s how he gets out, “About what?”

“That’s your one question,” Jonghyun reminds him. “Ask me how we met or something.” That’s the kind of thing Jonghyun would tell Taemin anyway, though, whether Taemin wanted to know or not. And sure enough, he barely gives Taemin a second to reply before he rattles off, “She goes to my sister’s school. They’re not friends or anything, they just know each other. It’s an all girls school.”

“Oh.”

“Have you ever visited one?” Jonghyun asks him, sitting back, ghost of a smirk curling his mouth. “Then again, you might not like it. Everyone staring at you.”

What does that have to do with anything?

If Jonghyun has tried like ten times tonight, Taemin can try one more. He takes a deep breath and says to the spot on the table next to Jonghyun, “What did you fight about?”

For the longest time, Jonghyun doesn’t answer, just sits there and stirs his spoon through his rice. Taemin eats and eats, even though nothing fills up the hole where his stomach used to be. Waits and waits.

“You were right, all I do is train,” he says finally, even though Taemin wasn’t the one who said it. He doesn’t get it, either. Unless she met Jonghyun before he entered the program? Back when he had a life outside of it, and there were things more important than debuting. Or maybe girlfriends are supposed to be more important than practice. Or something.

“Does she think training is easy?” is the safest way Taemin can put it, but that just makes Jonghyun shove his bowl out of the way and bury his face in his arms.

“Or she has ten million guys after her and she picked me,” he groans into them, voice muffled, “and I don’t deserve her. To answer your question, never. It’s been weeks since we last went out, I don’t even know how long. We even fought over the phone.”

Taemin hesitates, but only for a second, and then he leans across the table and pats Jonghyun’s head. Jonghyun’s hair is way softer than he thought, if he’d thought about it.

“Call her and make up.” Because Jonghyun hasn’t thought of that yet? Taemin’s ears go hot as he fumbles for more words. “Or wait until she calls you again, or something. Could your noona talk to her?”

Jonghyun shakes his head under Taemin’s palm, probably because that was the dumbest thing Taemin’s come up with yet. Before Taemin can come up with something even dumber, Jonghyun heaves himself up. The look on his face is one Taemin’s never seen before.

“Maybe she doesn’t think I can make it. If you look at it that way, I’m just wasting my time.” His mouth twists into this thing that looks like a smile. “Guess we’ll see if she’s right~”

Taemin’s heart slams to a stop in his chest.

_She’s not. She’s wrong. If she thinks that she’s way dumber than me. If you do, then you’re dumber than her._

Around him the world keeps moving, and the next bite he takes, his spoon scrapes the bottom of his bowl. Jonghyun hears it, peering over to see if Taemin’s finished, reaching for his wallet. “Let’s go, Taeminnie. It’s getting late.”

Taemin sets his spoon down on automatic and struggles to his feet, voice trapped in his throat. Even though they’ve been here a thousand times, enough that even Taemin could get back to the bus stop without getting lost, he lets Jonghyun take his wrist in his hand and lead him into the crowd, and instead of watching his feet, watching where he’s walking, he keeps his head up, whole world narrowed down to Jonghyun’s back.

_You have to make it, hyung. Otherwise how am I supposed to?_

The clock ticks louder than the teacher’s voice as she calls each name out, louder than all the chairs scraping against the floor and Taemin’s desk mate’s sigh as she sinks back into hers. Louder than his own heartbeat once it’s his turn. Maybe there’s something wrong with Taemin’s ears. There’s something wrong with everything else about him, so why not. 

He got a D. A fucking _D._

When the girl next to him peeks at his test his stomach sinks past the floor and his face goes red hot, and before he can even think, he’s snatched it out of sight, under his desk, rolled up tight in his hand. If she’s looking at him, if she’s smirking, about to laugh, he doesn’t have to know if he just puts his head down and waits it out. This feeling inside him. This stupid period. This stupid day. _School._

The noise around him swells the longer he hides in the crook of his elbow, until finally the teacher calls for silence, and Taemin has to sit up straight again and open his eyes, in case he looks like he’s sleeping. His skin should stop buzzing soon. His insides will unclench. He just has to survive until lunchtime without getting called on, and then survive until the final bell rings and he can get back to the practice room.

The clock keeps ticking.

The period…ends. Thank God.

Except on her way out the door, the teacher calls, “Taemin-ah.” Him? Why? Taemin’s muscles freeze up on him, but Sunsaengnim barely gives him any time. “Taemin-ah, come here for a second.”

The class bursts into noise again, laughter and whispering, but Sunsaengnim just watches along with the rest of them as he climbs to his feet, then ushers him into the hallway with her. Once the door clicks behind him, he has nowhere left to look but his feet, because he can’t bring himself to meet her eyes. It’s probably about his test. He got the worst grade or something. She’s going to yell at him.

“Is there something going on at home?” she says.

“What?” Taemin blurts out, surprised into looking up at her. “No.”

Her eyes narrow and her mouth tightens, something so close to a frown, before her face goes carefully blank and she lists out, “You always look tired, you never focus. You spent half of class today watching the clock. Your grades would suggest you’re not keeping up with the coursework.” When she pauses it settles in the bottom of Taemin’s stomach, heavy and dark. “The others have told me you’re not enrolled in hagwon? If it’s a money issue, there are ways—”

“It’s not that, it’s just. I have training then.”

And he just talked over her. Shit. But she just sighs and crosses her arms over her chest, and tells him impatiently, “We’re talking about your education, Taemin-ah. Has your mother looked into hiring a tutor for you?”

Does she not believe him, either? He told her and all his other teachers right at the start of the term, the way the program director told him to, just in case his schedule ever came into conflict with school. At first Taemin thought that meant he might get to skip, but so far all it’s come to is less sleep. Maybe if he’s chosen to debut and signs an artist contract, he won’t have to come here anymore at all, or come up with answers to this question besides _I don’t care about school_ or _When am I supposed to meet with a tutor?_

“My mom goes over my homework with me,” Taemin tries. Jonghyun and Jinki answer all Taemin’s questions, too, when he remembers to ask them. “I’m sorry about my test. I’ll do better.”

No good. Sunsaengnim sighs again, louder this time. “You’re not in elementary school anymore, Taemin-ah. Now is the time to start thinking about college.”

“I’m not going.”

Her mouth twitches, this almost-smile that twists Taemin’s stomach up. “Because you’ll be a singer? Aigoo. It’s fine for now if you think of college as a backup, as long as you don’t treat it like one. Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry,” comes out of him, even though he’s not. He’s really not. Really.

“I’m not saying this for you to feel sorry,” Sunsaengnim says patiently. “I’m saying it because I know you can do better if you apply yourself.”

He’s _not,_ but again, his voice says, “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing to me, you don’t need to apologize for everything.” She hesitates, then reaches for him awkwardly, squeezing his shoulder. “That’s the other thing. You seem to be having trouble making friends.”

What?

“It’s not that,” he begins again with difficulty, but that’s as far as he gets before he starts wishing he’d lied and said it was.

“I understand if you’re shy, but it’s up to you to overcome that,” she tells him. “Learning to work with and get along with others is as important as math or science.” She squeezes his shoulder one last time, then lets him go. When he drags his eyes up from his feet, she’s smiling at him. “Let’s make some nice memories this year, hmm?”

She leaves him with those words and walks off to her next class, but she’s headed in the same direction as the boy’s bathroom and he thinks he’d rather die than walk with her that far, so he’s stuck watching her go. If only he could turn in the other direction, run until he hits the doors, keep running all the way to SM, or until his heart bursts, he would. The program director also told him that he’d get kicked out if he started failing school, though.

As soon as he wrenches the door open and steps back inside, quiet ripples through the class, thirty pairs of eyes glued to his back as he makes it back to his desk and lays his head back down. 

The boy in front of him’s chair creaks as he twists around in his chair. Dongchan. He raps his knuckles on Taemin’s desk, then again, until Taemin gives in and looks up to find that stupid smirk back on his face. The first time Taemin saw it, Dongchan said, _How can you be a singer if you can’t even talk?_

This time it’s, “Are you failing?”

Taemin shakes his head, fighting for words.

Dongchan’s smirk widens. “But you failed the test?”

“No,” the girl next to Taemin blurts out, before she catches herself and turns away, beet red.

Dongchan laughs. When he tells Taemin, “Just don’t fail out of ~SM~,” the rest of the class joins in, too.

Taemin puts his head down again.

Maybe he should risk sleeping for real? As if he could like this, with his skin buzzing, his stomach churning, all the words he didn’t say cutting off his breath.

The clock ticks.

After showing Taemin how to solve for x for the hundredth time, Jinki asks him, “Does that make sense?”

Honestly?

“No.”

Taemin flops down onto the roof. When it’s summer, the cement will get hot enough to burn, but for now it’s nice, warmth seeping through Taemin’s shirt. The sky is still so big and blue he could stare into it forever, but the sun is already on its way down. Taemin hasn’t watched it set since before he started training. There are no windows in the practice room, and they always lock the roof up before it gets dark.

“I guess it doesn’t matter if it does?” Jinki says from above him. He pats Taemin’s knee. “Let’s just go through the steps again, if you memorize them you’ll be fine.”

“It’s okay, hyung. Teaching me math is like teaching you choreography.” They should get back to that, speaking of which, and they will, once Taemin figures out how to make himself get back up. Before Jinki can argue, Taemin reaches up to take his test from him, folding it up and putting it back in his pocket instead of ripping it into a million pieces and waiting for the wind to pick up. “I just can’t fail, is all. If I fail SM will drop me too.”

Jinki lies down next to him with a groan. “Hyung will do your homework, if it comes to that.”

“Seriously?”

That’s cheating, though.

“It won’t, but if it did.” Jinki smiles at the look on Taemin’s face. “If I didn’t, Jonghyunnie would. I’m better at math than he is.”

“Don’t tell him what grade I got,” Taemin says quickly.

“On what?” Taemin looks up to find Kibum standing over them. He doesn’t wait for Taemin to answer him, settling down besides him and Jinki, reaching over Taemin for the tray of spicy chicken kimbap laid out between them. “Let me guess,” he says. “C? C-.” Taemin shakes his head, kimbap in his stomach turning to stone. “Not an F?”

“D,” Taemin admits.

“Aigoo. Was that your first one?”

Yes. It probably won’t be the last, though, especially not with Kibum here to tell him, “Middle school is way harder than elementary, Taemin-ah.” He scoots closer to Taemin, knee pressed to Taemin’s side. “Let me see.”

“Jinki hyung already looked at it.”

That and Taemin would rather jump off the roof than look at it again.

“School isn’t about learning stuff, it’s about showing the teacher you listened to them.” Kibum pauses, probably watching to see if that went in anywhere. Before Taemin can figure out how to tell Kibum he tries, Kibum sighs and shakes his head. “It’s not your fault they’re boring. I’ll give you some of my old notes. I took them on everything, it was the only way I could stay awake.”

Jinki frowns at the two of them. “Is school really that bad?”

“Maybe not for you,” Kibum retorts.

Being good at things doesn’t mean it’s not hard, though. School could be as hard for Jinki as it is for Taemin, for all he knows. Jinki probably works a lot harder than him. Tries harder. Cares more.

Or maybe Taemin is just stupid.

“Did you come up here to get us or something?” Jinki is saying to Kibum.

“Nope. Who else am I supposed to eat with?”

Taemin struggles to sit up. “What about Jonghyun hyung?”

Kibum shakes his head again, reaching for another slice of kimbap. “Still in the vocal room, last I checked.”

Probably because evals are tomorrow. What is Taemin doing up here?

“Time to go, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin doesn’t turn at the sound of Jonghyun’s voice, just keeps dancing. As he tracks his own movements in the wall of mirrors, Jonghyun comes up behind him, cracking his jaw on a yawn, hands stuffed in his pockets. Once Taemin finds the breath, he says over the music, “You can go ahead,” but Jonghyun’s reflection stays right where it is.

“No Dongdaemun tonight? Fifteen more minutes, then,” Jonghyun says. He’s making this weird face Taemin’s probably not supposed to see, like he’s trying to bite his tongue instead of saying, “You’re not hungry? _You?”_

“I had kimbap before.”

Taemin had already had lunch before that, too, even if he didn’t taste it at all. He should’ve told Jinki to save his money.

The Jonghyun in the mirror folds his arms over his chest. “It’s ten anyway.”

“So go ahead,” Taemin gets out, chest tight, just as he fucks up _again._ No point restarting, he can just get it right next time, or the next or the next or. “I have to work on this, evals are tomorrow. I have to get it right.”

“So, what?” Jonghyun asks him. “You’re going to stay here all night?”

Taemin doesn’t realize that was a real question until suddenly Jonghyun’s hand closes around his wrist, pulling Taemin around to face him, yanking him out of rhythm and leaving him feeling sweaty and tired and gross for the first time all night. His heart keeps right on pounding as he meets Jonghyun’s eyes and finds this look on his face he can’t read.

“You have before, you said,” Taemin reminds him, in case he’s mad or something, but that just makes Jonghyun’s eyes narrow and his mouth thin, twisting Taemin’s insides so tight there’s no room for air.

“That’s me,” Jonghyun begins, and suddenly Taemin sees red.

“It’s not even the last bus,” he snaps, turning away, twisting his wrist in Jonghyun’s grip.

Jonghyun holds on, tugging him forward, leading him towards the door like he’s a child or something. “You don’t have to sit next to hyung if you don’t want to, but you’re getting on it.”

Taemin wrenches free, “You’re not my dad,” flying out of him, setting his ears on fire, because why does his voice sound like that? Why does he always say the stupidest thing?

Why does Jonghyun have to tell him what he already knows, in the loudest fucking voice, for everyone to hear, “No, but you’re a kid, in case you forgot. Since you can’t take care of yourself, someone has to.”

There’s no one here anyway, just the two of them. And the person coming down the hallway, footfalls echoing, doors banging as they peer into each room. Shit. It’s probably one of the teachers, or a janitor, just someone who’s going to tell Taemin the same thing Jonghyun just did. _Aigoo, are you still here? Time to go home, Taemin-ah. Aren’t you tired?_

This time when Jonghyun pulls at him again Taemin follows dumbly, muscles like mush. Except instead of turning towards the stairs Jonghyun drags him in the opposite direction from the stairs, around the corner and down the hall, all the way to the vocal room at the end. Once the door clicks shut behind them everything goes silent and black. The only things that tell Taemin he’s not alone are Jonghyun’s breath gusting his face, Jonghyun’s foot pressed to his, his fingers digging into Taemin’s shoulder. His voice, low and hushed, telling Taemin, “They never remember to check in here if the light’s off.”

“I thought you never stayed here on purpose.”

Somehow that comes out all loud and just wrong. He can’t see that look on Jonghyun’s face from before, but he can hear it. “I’m me. You’re you. You’re thirteen, Taeminnie.”

“Fourteen.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Jonghyun snaps, voice rising, before another door slams shut and he remembers himself and goes back to whispering. “What about your mom, what did you tell her? You didn’t call her, did you.”

Taemin’s face goes hot.

“She’ll just think I’m with a friend or something.”

“Or something?” Jonghyun repeats incredulously. “When her kid doesn’t come home, do you think she’s just gonna be like, oh well, I don't know where he is but he's probably safe, or _something—”_

“I’ve been coming here for almost as long as you,” _shut up, Taemin-ah, shut up shut up shut up,_ “and I just said, I’m fucking fourteen, I’m not a fucking baby.”

“And you have no friends anyway, you said before. All you have is me.”

Silence. A million miles away another door slams. Another, another, another. Or maybe that’s Taemin’s heartbeat.

“Fuck off.”

Taemin reaches for the door handle blindly, fingertips scrabbling against the wood, then the back of Jonghyun’s hand, because he got there first, and now he won’t let go or get out of the way, let Taemin go back to the rest of his stupid fucking life—

“Is it me you’re mad at, or is it something else?”

Jonghyun’s voice is as even as the rest of him is solid. It must take nothing out of him to hold Taemin back like this. Someday Taemin is going to be taller and bigger than him and if Jonghyun doesn’t let him do something it won’t matter, he’ll just fucking do it, and no one will stop him, and it’s his life, and.

The next door to slam shatters the silence, so close it reverberates around the room. The footsteps pause and Taemin freezes, Jonghyun’s hand clapped over his mouth. It’s rough and warm, as warm as Jonghyun’s breath washing over his face. It smells like mint, not tuna or kimchi or whatever Jonghyun had for lunch. Taemin’s heart is going to give out at this rate, hammering in his ears, pounding out his chest. Jonghyun can probably feel it.

Moments pass. An eternity. Then the footsteps pick up again, back the way they came, until the silence grows so deep, all Taemin can hear is his own breathing mingling with Jonghyun’s. Finally, suddenly, Jonghyun releases him and steps away, before Taemin can remember how his legs work and jerk away or decide if he’s still mad, even, if that’s what this feeling is, bright hot under his skin. Whatever. He can figure it out in the practice room. Jonghyun doesn’t stop him this time when he goes for the door handle, but he doesn’t follow Taemin out either, he’s too busy fumbling along the wall for the light switch. By the time he finds it, Taemin’s already halfway down the hallway, and the vocal room window is a yellow square in the shadows. Heart in his throat, skin prickling, Taemin feels his way back to the practice room, counting door handles until he hits the right one.

The practice room is even darker. And creepier. It takes Taemin two whole minutes to find the light switch in here, but he leaves the sound system alone, just in case it booms out so loud that person hears it on the way to their car or something. Anyway, he doesn’t need music. If he weren’t here right now, he’d probably be practicing these same steps on the way to the bus stop, half listening to the million things Jonghyun always finds to say between here and there, half hating Jonghyun for tripping him up. Not hating, not even half. That’s the wrong word. Taemin can never find the right one.

He doesn’t need it right now, anyway. No more words. No thoughts. Just breathe. Focus. 

_Move._

It might have been two seconds or two hours when suddenly the sound blasts on, two beats behind him. As Taemin spins to a stop, Jonghyun fiddles with the volume, lowering it to a murmur so that he can tell Taemin, “I called your mom and told her you’re staying at my house.”

The phone is all the way downstairs. He went that far in the dark?

Taemin didn’t even think of it.

“You didn’t have to.” It just comes out like that, but Jonghyun knows he didn’t, and he’s probably opening his mouth to tell Taemin that too, and. Taemin rushes to get there first. “Thank you, hyung.”

Jonghyun gets this look on his face like he’s going to explode or something, and for one long endless moment all Taemin can do is stand there and watch and wait with his stomach opening up.

“Aigooo.” Jonghyun reaches over to pinch both Taemin’s cheeks. Hard. Somehow it doesn’t hurt at all, not with Jonghyun smiling down at him. “It’s a school night, you do know that, right?”

“I act like it sometimes, but I’m not dumb, hyung,” Taemin says.

Jonghyun flattens his palms to Taemin’s cheeks, squishing them in, making Taemin really ugly probably, sending his face all hot. “I never said you were.”

“I know how to get there,” Taemin can just barely get out without biting his tongue. “I just have to go the same way I get here, except backwards. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I don’t?”

Is that a real question again? Whatever. It’s like Jonghyun himself has told him before – he doesn’t have to do anything for Taemin, he just does. When Taemin wriggles free Jonghyun doesn’t hold onto him, but he doesn’t go back to the vocal room either, just stands there and watches while Taemin catches up to where the song is and lets the beat hit his body. Stays in the corner of his eye. The first few glances Taemin snatches at his reflection it’s like he hasn’t moved at all, but then the next, he’s wrestling his hoodie over his head, almost taking his shirt with it, miles and miles of bare skin. Taemin tears his eyes away, ears burning. Which, it’s not like it’s a big deal. He’s seen Jonghyun changing before, who cares. Jonghyun probably doesn’t. He’s too busy burning through the choreo same as Taemin, each beat hitting his body as hard as it hits Taemin’s, until his shirt is damp and his bangs are plastered to his forehead, and he looks as hot and sweaty as Taemin feels.

His eyes find Taemin’s in the mirror. Was Taemin staring? Shit. Why is he being so weird, what is wrong with him tonight.

“What? Should I fuck off?” Jonghyun smiles, which means that’s a joke, which means Taemin can go back to breathing. “Too bad, I need to work on this more than you do. Way more.”

“You keep doing it wrong.”

That’s not even a lie, so why does it feel like one? Jonghyun laughs breathlessly, like bubbles in Taemin’s stomach. “Then you are too, I’m just copying you.”

Whatever. Taemin tries for words and just comes up with air, so he lets the song go on without them, pulling Jonghyun’s limbs into the right positions, adjusting his hips, kicking his feet into place. Jonghyun lets him do it, just like Jinki always does, eyes following Taemin the whole time, no matter how much Taemin avoids them. When he returns to his own place he has to force himself to keep his head up, force himself to watch himself instead of Jonghyun, until finally his world narrows back down and time disappears. 

Until it doesn’t. Jonghyun gives him until two in the morning before he starts reminding him every five minutes that sleep is as important as practice, _come on, Taemin-ah, hyung is tired too, let’s just stop, mm? Mm?_ Taemin’s body takes until three thirty to break down. The ceiling spins as he lies spread-eagled on the floor, light fixtures like comets, and he thinks maybe he could stay like this forever. Jonghyun is right, though, he can’t, he has to get up tomorrow. He needs Jonghyun’s help getting to his feet now, Jonghyun’s hands on his shoulders to keep him on them, leading him down the hall to the bathrooms. He asks Taemin if he wants to see what it’s like inside the girls’ one, like Taemin cares what they put where the urinals are in here. Jonghyun waits for him forever while he tries to pee, because he thinks he’d rather die than have to get up again before he has to, let alone find his way back here in the darkness. Where are they even going to sleep?

The vocal room, looks like. They settle down onto the floor, and Taemin digs his school blazer out of his bag just to wad it up under his head, then adds the rest of his uniform before he remembers Jonghyun. Jonghyun says he’s fine with just his arm for a pillow, though, says it’s hot in here too, and gives Taemin his hoodie for a blanket. And that’s it. Taemin says his prayers, and when he opens his eyes Jonghyun is right where he left him, lying on his side, features smooth, breathing even. He’s stayed over at Taemin’s house a few times, but Taemin always drifts off first. He’s never seen Jonghyun sleep.

“I’m sorry about what I said before,” Jonghyun says without opening his eyes.

Just like that, it’s a struggle not to turn over and curl up and squeeze his eyes shut tight.

“About me having no friends?” Taemin says with difficulty. “If my mom knows it’s not because I told her. What’s the point in talking about it?”

For one long moment, Jonghyun just looks at him. “Sometimes keeping it in is worse, Taeminnie. If something hurts, then say that it hurts.”

“It would have hurt worse before.” Honestly. Taemin didn’t say it to lie to Jonghyun or anything, but he’s surprised by how much he ends up meaning it. “Now, though…by the end of the day I can barely remember what I did at school. Everything important is here.” That’s kind of a lie, but only kind of, and only because he’s counting Mom and Dad and Taewoo. If he still had friends, they’d count too. And maybe his skateboard, even though it’s been months since the last time he got to use it. But homework? Test grades? The brands he’s supposed to wear and the shows he’s supposed to watch, the jokes he’s supposed to get, the things he’s supposed to want, all that is nothing to him. “But maybe that’s the problem? I’d do better in school if I didn’t train, and they’d have to find something else to hate about me.”

Jonghyun smiles faintly, this smile that sticks in Taemin’s chest weirdly. “There is nothing, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin rolls onto his back and takes a deep breath. Another. Finally he finds the voice to say, “Whatever. I don’t want to be normal, anyway,” even if it’s to the ceiling.

“Good, because you aren’t,” Jonghyun replies immediately, surprising a laugh out of Taemin.

“I don’t mean being weird. I want to be special. Like God picked me for something, or something. Sometimes when I dance I feel like that’s it.” Taemin hesitates. “What about singing, it doesn’t feel like that to you?”

When Taemin sneaks a glance at him Jonghyun catches him right away.

“I don’t believe in God,” he says.

“What?”

Jonghyun smiles at the look on Taemin’s face. “I don’t not, either. Just…if he is up there, he’s not interested in me, so I’m not going to waste my time caring what he thinks.”

Just like that, Taemin’s heart hurts so bad he can hardly breathe.

“Hyung…”

Jonghyun’s expression flickers, but his voice sounds so normal when he says, “That sounded really dramatic, right? Honestly, it’s not. It’s not something I think about that much.” He reaches over to pet Taemin’s hair, hand clumsy and rough in the dark. “My mom prays enough for like ten people, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

_Next time I’ll pray for you, too, hyung. It’s okay if I do, right?_

Maybe Taemin should be asking Jonghyun if his mom makes him go to church, but that’s probably none of his business, and somehow what comes out instead is, “How far is it from my house to yours?”

Jonghyun narrows his eyes at him. “In case your mom asks?”

Taemin shakes his head, clothes rustling under his ear. “Just because.”

Jonghyun closes his eyes, shifting his weight, getting comfortable. _Stop asking dumb questions, Taeminnie. Go to sleep already._ Jonghyun said he could, though, that day. He said Taemin could ask anything and he’d answer.

Which he does. “Half a mile, maybe? It feels like more, it’s all uphill.”

Their whole neighborhood is, basically.

“What does your dad do?” comes rushing out of Taemin before he can stop it. “Mine works in an office so it’s all boring stuff. But you already know.”

For one long moment, so long Taemin almost gives up on him, Jonghyun is silent. Then, with his eyes still closed, “Works in an office, too. Sleep, Taeminnie.”

Taemin’s trying. It’s just, words keep bubbling up, but somehow it’s not tiring at all, chasing after them, trying to pop them before they escape. His heart won’t slow down either, and with each peek he takes at Jonghyun, the less scared he is he’ll get caught. His eyes have adjusted, too. He could see everything, if he just looked.

“Practice the steps whenever you walk somewhere tomorrow,” Taemin murmurs. “That helps.”

Jonghyun doesn’t answer. Is he sleeping?

Is this what it looks like?

“Sleep,” Jonghyun tells him again.

How is Taemin supposed to, when he’s not?

Taemin wakes up without knowing the answer. He finds Jonghyun in the bathroom, splashing water on his face. He just starts changing in front of Taemin, too, before Taemin can get a stall door between them. His uniform feels like a straightjacket as he pulls it on, but his sweats were so gross he practically had to peel them off. After evals, he’ll have to remember to take them home to wash.

Evals. Shit.

Even with the ghost of the night sky hanging over it, Gangnam is no quieter. The road is packed with rush hour traffic, foreign cars stretching out as far as Taemin can see, and the sidewalks are just as bad. For once, Jonghyun doesn’t try to talk, so Taemin concentrates on where he’s walking, weaving through a sea of business suits and clipped cell phone conversations, horns honking and heels clicking, music still trickling out of the clubs they pass. By the time they climb down into the subway, the sun is just beginning to rise. When Taemin gets off the train it’ll be shining down on him, bright and yellow, the exact opposite of what he’ll be feeling like inside.

Jonghyun buys him water and bread out of the vending machines in the corner, then sits with Taemin on one of the benches while he eats. He says he’s not hungry when Taemin rips him off half, but Taemin didn’t even he realize he was starving until that first bite. He doesn’t say anything when Jonghyun takes a drink from the bottle, not even to warn him that’s a secondhand kiss. Like Jonghyun cares, like anyone over five does. Taemin crams his mouth with food before any of those words come out, ears tingling, watching Jonghyun slump back, rubbing at his eyes. His hair is sticking up in back and his tie is hanging loose. Taemin didn’t even bother with his. Maybe he should have?

“You look tired,” Jonghyun says.

“So do you,” Taemin replies with his mouth full.

“Did you sleep at all?”

Taemin fights to swallow. “Did you?”

.Jonghyun’s only answer is to pinch Taemin’s cheek and make a face at him.

Just like that, there’s a smile on Taemin’s. “I wasn’t copying you, I was asking.”

“The floor is really hard,” is all Jonghyun has to say to that. “Which way are you going, anyway?” When Taemin tells him, he tells Taemin he’s the opposite. “What am I gonna do? There’s no time to go home and change now.”

What is he worried about?

“You don’t smell, hyung.” Taemin says it to be helpful, but Jonghyun just makes another face at him. “It’s just your uniform.”

“I guess there’ll be time after evals,” Jonghyun says. He hesitates, like he’s not sure he’s going to say this next thing, but his smile gives him away, crazy, too-bright. “Hyung has a date tonight~.”

Oh.

“You made up with her?” Taemin says.

Jonghyun’s smile curls into something like a smirk, twisting Taemin’s stomach up weirdly, and he says, “We will tonight.” Does he mean sex? Jonghyun’s laugh catches in his throat, breathless and awkward, almost like he’s embarrassed at how that sounded. Whatever. It’s not like Taemin doesn’t know what that is. There’s a girl in his class who says she’s kissed with tongue before. “I’m working on it. If you leave early, we can go together.”

When Jonghyun reaches up to pet Taemin’s hair, Taemin shies away before he can stop himself, far enough out of reach that Jonghyun’s fingers graze his cheek instead. It’s lucky that Jonghyun can’t feel how hot they are right now.

It’s so hard to say to Jonghyun instead of his feet, “That’s okay.”

“Ask Kibummie to walk you as far as the bus stop, then,” Jonghyun says immediately. “Or Jinki hyung or someone.”

“They all take the subway, that’s in the other direction. Why do we keep talking about this? You’re worse than my mom.”

“It’s not because I think you’re dumb, Taemin-ah, it’s not you.” Jonghyun catches his eye. “It’s just, there are a lot of creeps—”

“—who hang around at night, I know.”

Only because Kibum told him, but so what.

That’s not good enough for Jonghyun anyway. “Do you know what they’d do to you?”

Taemin’s face goes even hotter. At this rate he’s going to evaporate, leave his uniform behind in a puddle and shoot into the lightening sky.

“Nothing?” he manages, but that just makes Jonghyun smile that stupid smile. _Isn’t Taeminnie cute~._ Suddenly air rushes from the tunnel behind them, this whooshing that fills Taemin’s ears and steals Jonghyun’s reply, blows Jonghyun’s hair back from his face. Plays with it. He’s going to look so crazy by the time he gets to school. Right now he looks…

“Looks like yours got here first,” Jonghyun says. “Go on, Taemin-ah.”

Train.

Taemin gets up automatically.

“See you, hyung.”

He takes two steps before Jonghyun’s hand lands on his shoulder and his voice calls him back.

“Wait, Taeminnie.” He hesitates. “If anyone gives you any shit today—”

“It’s okay, I don’t care,” Taemin says over him. They only have a few seconds left, people pushing past them on either side, getting on, getting off. The big clock over their heads ticks forward another minute. “Remember, practice.“

Taemin crazy legs his way onto the train. He turns back in time to catch Jonghyun’s smile between the closing doors. It takes forever for the train to shift gears, for the system to blare out the next stop, for Taemin to find the nearest pole to hang onto, for Jonghyun to turn away and watch for his train to come. All the same, when the train hurtles forward, it’s so sudden, throwing him into the person next to him, knocking the smile off his own face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whenever it takes me a long time to update, I usually resist the urge to apologize, because I feel like it’s understood in fandom that real life can get in the way, and I have nothing to add to that. However, since it’s gotten to the point where I’m starting to avoid AO3 out of guilt, I thought maybe it’d be healthier to just address it haha. Without boring you guys with all the details of my life, my work went kind of crazy towards the end of the year, on top of holiday stuff, and after deciding to apply at the last minute this fall, I’m starting on my master’s this month. I’m really sorry that I began this WIP with such horrible timing. That being said, I am no less committed to finishing it and will continue to work on it as much as I can. Thank you so much for your patience, and I really hope that everyone is doing okay and that your holidays went well. <3


	6. Dropout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: brief references to death and dying made by Jonghyun

The man is there again.

Taemin only sees him when it’s almost too late to pretend he hasn’t, standing in the shade of the tree outside the training center instead of a black umbrella. Today is the first day all week that’s felt like August, drenched in sunlight instead of rain. The man must be sweating through his suit, tie jerked loose and sleeves rolled up, hair on end like he’s run his fingers through it a thousand times. There’s a pile of cigarette butts at his feet, at least an hours’ worth, but he’s not smoking for once. He’s talking to one of the girls from the program.

Which is probably worse, right? But also probably the only reason he hasn’t tried to talk to Taemin yet. The first time Taemin saw him out here, he beckoned Taemin over before he could reach the doors and asked him if this was the SM building, like Taemin was supposed to know where that was. Taemin told him it was the training center, but he probably should have made something up, because the next day, the man was back. Taemin hasn’t forgotten his headphones since.

He did forget to put them in until now, though. Once the world is plugged out, he starts walking, head down, heart thumping in his ears, louder with each step, until finally he’s inside. He looks down to find the headphone jack dangling outside his pocket, but it’s okay, who cares. There’s no one here to see him coil them back up and stuff him in his pocket, and the man is still outside in the sun, talking to…Soojung, right? Taemin is so bad at names.

He’s also so bad at being a man. He left her out there with him and saved himself, and now the best he can do is lurk in the entrance way until finally the door swings open and it’s her, and he can breathe again. When she nods at him, he barely remembers to nod back. The silence between them lasts all the way up the stairs, until she splits off towards the girls’ practice room. Everything but dancing is mixed, but the fact that there’s someone younger than Taemin in the program finally hasn’t stopped anyone from treating him like a baby, anyway. 

Such as Kibum. He hates changing in front of people as much as Taemin, which is why he follows him from the lockers to the bathroom and takes the stall next to him, but as soon as Taemin starts to say his name, Kibum tells him, “If it’s about homework, ask later. Hyung will go over it with you~”

If he said he’d rather ask Jinki, that would probably make Taemin a bad person, and more importantly, who cares.

“There’s a man who’s been hanging around outside,” Taemin says.

For a second he thinks he’s going to have to figure out how to make that sound more serious, standing there listening to Kibum’s silence, his clothes rustling as he undresses. Then Kibum says offhandedly, “Yeah, I’ve seen.”

Which, it makes sense that he would have. Taemin was probably the last to notice, like always.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t talk to him,” he says just in case.

“Good.”

“He talked to me once, though.” Taemin hesitates, midway through pulling his shirt off. “Do you think he’s one of those people you told me about? I saw him talking to one of the girls. Jung Soojung. Don’t worry, I watched her go in.”

“You really think I worry a lot.” Kibum doesn’t sound annoyed, though, and the very next thing he says is, “Just stay away from him, okay?” like Taemin isn’t way, way ahead of him on that. “If he’s not a pedo he’s probably a poacher from another company.”

What does that mean? Someone trying to get them to leave SM for another program?

At a loss, Taemin says, “We all signed a contract, though.”

“Well, we’re not all going to debut,” Kibum retorts.

Like Taemin doesn’t know that? He’s not stupid. Which is not why his chest goes tight and his legs feel so heavy as he steps into his track pants, or why he has no clue what to say to that except, “Isn’t better to take your chances here? My dad said it’s better to sign with a big company. Otherwise you have to go into debt, and you never know if they might go under.”

“It’s not that simple for everyone, Taemin-ah,” Kibum replies more gently, even though Taemin’s not sure what that’s supposed to mean. It could just be Taemin’s ears, but Kibum’s voice sounds a little weird when he goes on, “It’s not something you need to worry about yet, anyway. Even if you get passed over for the next boy group, you’ll still have another chance.”

There’s that word again. Worry. It came out of his mouth without thinking, but now that Kibum’s saying it, it knots up Taemin’s stomach. Taemin doesn’t know how to tell Kibum that you don’t get passed over, you fuck up, when there’s no way he doesn’t know that already. He works as hard as Taemin does, and it’s harder for him too. His family is still up in Daegu and none of the hyungs look after him the way the way he and Jinki and Jonghyun do Taemin.

“Hyung—”

“Hyung is going now,” Kibum cuts him off. “You can get yourself back to the practice room, right~?”

With a rustles of clothes, he’s gone. Before the door can slam shut behind Kibum, though, it swings open again, halfway through another hyung’s sentence.

“…dropped out of school.”

Junmyeon. He’s probably talking to Jonghyun. Or not. Just as Taemin reaches for the latch someone else says, “I wish I had those kind of balls.”

Sihyun. The hyung who still looks at Kibum weird when it’s been months since the fight, and who says to Taemin all the time, _When are you going to grow? Come here, come do stretches with me, hyung will make you taller._

“Don’t joke about it, all right?” Junmyeon says. “If he doesn’t debut, he’s screwed for life. This is really serious.”

Taemin freezes. If he went out there now, they probably wouldn’t even say anything to him, but before he can get his muscles working again their footsteps have carried them to the urinals, zippers cutting through the silence, and then. Yeah. The toilet seat is hard and cold under Taemin’s thighs, but he’s stuck until they leave now.

“If he doesn’t debut, we all are,” Sihyun sighs. “He gets first place every time at evals, Junmyeon-ah.”

Wait, what?

“Try working as hard as he does,” is all Junmyeon has to say to that, leaving Taemin struggling to catch up, heart pounding all of the sudden.

“No thanks. I’d rather have a life~.” For a second Sihyun hesitates. “Is it about his mom, is he getting a job?”

Whose mom? _Who are they talking about?_

Junmyeon just sighs. “No, he said he’s going to music school instead.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, that’s just what he said. Seoul Music High School. I asked my mom and she’d never heard of it.” Junmyeon’s voice is so heavy, pressing down on Taemin’s chest, cutting off his air. “I hope hyung knows what he’s doing.”

Sihyun’s shoes squelch over to the sink. Over the spray of the tap, he asks, “How is his girlfriend taking it? I’m surprised he’s held onto her this long, she must have guys lining up to date her.”

Who cares about that right now?

Not Junmyeon. “When have you ever even seen her?”

“Noraebang, that one time. Remember?” The dispenser rattles as Sihyun yanks paper towels out. “She must be pissed~”

“She is, he said she did everything but break up with him basically. She told him she wasn’t going to support him when this doesn’t work out.” The words are barely out of Junmyeon’s mouth before he adds warningly, “Don’t tell anyone any of that. I don’t even know what I’m doing telling you.”

“Everyone will know when they break up, anyway.”

“Seriously, don’t. He still wants to get her back, he really likes her, so don’t fuck that up for him.”

All that, just to get out of Sihyun, “Sure.” And then, “Jonghyun hyung’s already fucked up the rest of his life.”

Before he knows what’s happening, Taemin is fighting his way to his feet. The toilet flushes loudly when his hand slips, sending Junmyeon and Sihyun spiraling into silence. Taemin fumbles with the latch blindly, numb everywhere, heart caught in his throat, only thought in his head to get out of here. And _Jonghyun hyung. Dropped out of school, fucked up his life, screwed for the rest of it. Jonghyun hyung—_

The stall door bangs open finally. Taemin avoids Sihyun and Junmyeon’s eyes, keeping his head down and making for the exit, ignoring Sihyun’s laughter, him saying, “It’s just Taeminnie,” but within three steps Sihyun stops him. “Aren’t you going to wash your hands?”

Taemin turns back to the sinks, hating him the whole way. The water is too cold, shrinking his skin against his bones, but Taemin can barely feel it, or Junmyeon’s hand on his shoulder. “Taemin-ah, you don’t say anything to him, either. The last thing he needs right now is more questions.” Junmyeon catches his eye. “Just pretend you didn’t hear, okay?”

How the fuck is Taemin supposed to do that?

Junmyeon lets him go instead of telling him, so Taemin pretends all the way down the hallway, and then sits on the floor and holds Kibum’s legs and watches Jonghyun out of the corner of his eye, and pretends some more. Is Jonghyun pretending too? Talking and laughing with the other hyungs, leaning back on his hands and watching the class struggle through their stretches. He never does them himself. Why is he so lazy about this one single thing? One of these days he’s going to regret it. He’s going to get hurt.

The smile Jonghyun shoots Taemin looks so real, too. Taemin has to look away.

When Taemin opens the door, Mom is already waiting on the other side. He keeps his eyes on his feet so that he won’t have to watch her face fall as he trudges past her.

“No Jonghyunnie today?” she calls after him, before Taemin can shut his door, put something between himself and the rest of this fucking world.

He shrugs out of his backpack, letting it thump to the floor, and throws himself down onto his bed. When he buries his face in his pillow nothing goes away, though, not even when he squeezes his eyes shut so tight it hurts. Not this stupid fucking day, not his stupid fucking life. What do Junmyeon and Sihyun know, what is there to ruin anyway? He wishes he could drop out too. He would stay in the practice room all day and work twice as hard as he already does, and then maybe Kibum wouldn’t tell him to bank on having a second chance. He’d only need one.

_It’s only useful if you make it, Taemin-ah._

_And school is useful if I don’t, right?_

Taemin breathes so deep his lungs burn, then again, and again, Jonghyun’s voice still ringing in his head, until all he’s left with is the stupid things Jonghyun said to him all the way home. He probably thinks Taemin is stupid, he probably thinks that’s all he’d understand. _Do you want to stop for banana milk? Hyung has some extra change~. Don’t worry, the bus driver won’t say anything. Remember, that ahjussi even smoked last week and he didn’t give a shit. No? That’s unlike you. You must be tired._

_How did school go today?_

That’s not fair. Who cares if Jonghyun thinks so, Taemin is stupid. He’s so fucking stupid. That whole time Jonghyun spent filling Taemin’s silence, Taemin could have spent telling him, _I heard you dropped out, I heard you’re having a really hard time right now. You don’t have to pretend you’re not, not in front of me._ Asking him, _Hyung, are you okay?_

Why wouldn’t he be? It’s just fucking school.

If Taemin stays in his room any longer he might suffocate, so he throws himself down in front of the TV instead.

“You must be all done with your homework,” Mom says from the couch, in a voice that says she knows he’s not. When Taemin doesn’t answer she tries again. “You must be ready for Mom to go over it with you, then~”

Taemin hasn’t even started it. He buries his face in his arms while the people on the television carry on arguing. The floor is no better than his pillow was, though, and if he closes his eyes again he’ll be back where he started.

“What if I dropped out of school?” Taemin says.

Taewoo snorts. “You’d be a loser.”

Taemin’s stomach clenches, this sick awful crawling feeling. “Not if I debuted.”

“You’d be dead,” Mom cuts in a little too sharply.

Jonghyun’s mom probably said the same thing. Maybe. Who knows – Taemin’s never even met her.

“What’s the point of school?” It comes out of Taemin’s mouth before he can stop himself, then hangs in the air. “I’m not even learning anything.”

Taewoo snorts again, couch creaking as he leans forward to dig his foot into Taemin’s butt. “If you’re not learning anything, then the problem isn’t school, it’s you.”

_Fuck off,_ Taemin just barely bites back. He scoots out of Taewoo’s reach, so fast he burns his arms on the rug, so close to the TV he can count the pixels in Seo Jihye’s face. When Mom found this drama, she tried to get Taemin to watch it with her. _See, Taemin-ah, it’s about idols. Mom is learning about your world~._ Taemin didn’t know how to tell her that she wasn’t, that in his world, none of these people would’ve made it anywhere.

All Mom has to say now is, “I always hated school, too. If you don’t debut, you can always find a nice man and start a family, like Mom did~”

Taewoo laughs. Taemin was supposed to.

“What are we supposed to do with the books we read?” comes out of him instead. “Do you use math? And don’t say money, that doesn’t count, you learn that in real life.”

“You’re good at math, though,” Mom says, like that was the point at all.

“Everyone is in elementary school. All I’m good at now is dancing.”

“And do you use that outside of training?”

Taewoo asks it like a real question, so Taemin should probably give him a real answer, not tell him again, “I will when I debut.”

“What if you don’t?” Taewoo says. When Mom shushes him Taemin’s stomach twists. _Do you both think I’ve never thought of that before? You think I don’t spend every day trying not to?_

“Then I’ll just jump off the roof or something,” Taemin says out loud.

“Taemin-ah,” Mom begins gently, before Taewoo says over her, “It’s not even high enough, you wouldn’t even die.”

“Fine, I’ll jump off SM’s. Happy?”

_“Taemin-ah,”_ Mom repeats, shocked.

Taemin pushes himself up, scrambling to his feet, blood burning so hot it’s like his whole body’s gone numb. He makes for his room, leaving Seo Jihye to cry some more about her TV life. That’s the other thing that makes that show so fake. Even after he’s slammed the door to his room and thrown himself on the bed so hard he bounces and buried his face in his pillow again, the thing inside him doesn’t let itself out. His eyes stay dry and his voice is trapped inside his chest. God isn’t like a drama writer, either, he makes too much sense. If he falls asleep now he won’t wake up to find all his problems solved, he’ll just have to get up and start running even faster. Cram his homework into his bus and train ride. Take notes like Kibum said and pinch himself to stay awake and pretend his lunch still tastes like food when he’s eating it alone. He has to clean after school tomorrow, too, he’s pretty sure. Shit. And if he makes it to training on time after that, he has to look Jonghyun in the face and pretend he doesn’t know. Maybe someday Jonghyun will just tell him the bad shit instead of waiting for Taemin to figure it out on his own.

Maybe there won’t be a someday. If they don’t make it they might never see each other again.

Taemin’s next breath is like a knife between his ribs. It bursts out of him in something so close to a sob, so loud he almost misses the door snicking open.

“Taeminnie?”

Taemin curls in on himself, shutting his eyes tight. “I don’t want to talk right now.”

Mom never listens to him when he says that. He should have pretended to be asleep, then maybe the mattress wouldn’t dip behind him and her hand wouldn’t land in his hair, gentle and warm and twisting his insides up even tighter.

“Just nod or shake your head, then.” Mom combs his bangs back from his face. “Hmm?”

Taemin swallows hard, almost choking on another sob-like thing. He’s not crying, though. He’s not.

“You don’t like any of your classes?” Mom asks.

It’s not that. Taemin shakes his head, hard enough that she won’t ask again.

“Are you falling behind? Mom can hire a tutor.”

“I don’t need one.”

That’s a lie, but it doesn’t taste like one.

“Do you want Mom to talk to your teachers?”

“No.”

Mom hesitates. “What about their parents?”

“Don’t you know that’d just make it worse?” bursts out of Taemin, in a voice that doesn’t sound like his at all. Tears well up in his eyes finally, hot and angry, and before he can even think he’s reaching up to scrub them away. Shit. Now Mom will know, if she doesn’t already. “There’s nothing you can do, Mom. It’s not even that bad.”

Mom’s hand wavers, then picks up stroking again, even slower and gentler than before. “Is training tiring?”

Her voice sounds a little weird, too.

Taemin has to fight so hard just to get out, “Mm.”

“But you can do it,” she says.

“Mm.”

This time it comes a little easier.

“It’s okay if you can’t, Taemin-ah. If it ever gets to be too much–” And just like that, ten different things shoot up Taemin’s throat, _it won’t, if it does it won’t change anything, I’d rather die than quit, if SM doesn’t want me in the end I’ll go get poached,_ but Mom knows him too well. She heads him off. “It won’t, but if it does, that’s okay too. Mom will be just as proud of you.”

It takes everything Taemin has not to wrench away from Mom’s hand, so gentle it’s ripping him to shreds inside. “Why would you be?”

Without dancing he’d be no one. Just the loser the kids in his class see, not the person in the practice room mirror.

“Something must be wrong, something must have happened. You wouldn’t think like that otherwise,” Mom says, instead of answering him. “You don’t have to tell me, but maybe I could help. I can with a lot of things, you know.”

_You can’t with this. I can’t either. I’m not even supposed to know. There’s nothing I can do for him, Mom._

Is there?

The next day is so cloudy that it feels like night. Time doesn’t pass like it would in a dream, though. It drags, second by second, minute by minute, period by period, and all the while the rain drums on the window and Taemin’s head goes around and around. _I’m going to talk to hyung today. No, I won’t bring it up first. I will. I won’t. I can’t. You can, Taemin-ah. You should, you have to._

_Why? You wouldn’t say anything useful anyway. That’s why he never talked to you about it to begin with. That’s why he never talks to you about anything._

“Taemin-ah.” Seonsaengnim’s voice hits Taemin like a thunderclap. The girl next to him digs her elbow into his side. “Problem Five. Dragging your feet won’t make me call on someone else, come on.”

Laughter ripples across the room as Taemin climbs to his feet and makes his way to the board. Math is easier than Jonghyun, though. It’s okay if he gets it wrong, who cares if they all laugh at him some more. If he gets Jonghyun wrong, though…

You never ask. You don’t know what he’d tell you, if you just asked.

“If you can’t figure it out, go back to your seat.”

Taemin can. He just has to ignore the part of him that wants to turn around and hide again regardless.

_Ask, Taemin-ah._

Try.

Once Taemin is alone with Jonghyun, he will. He’ll try really, really hard, he’ll tell himself every step he takes towards the bus stop not to chicken out, he’ll spend the entire bus ride finding his voice, finding the right words, and if they stop for food, he won’t let himself take a single bite until they’re out of his mouth. And then…who knows. That’s not up to Taemin.

There are still hours and hours between him and then, until suddenly there aren’t. Practice passes in a blur. Taemin makes thousands of mistakes only Ssaem could catch, Jonghyun makes all the same ones, Jinki makes thousands more, and Kibum makes none. The other hyungs laugh and talk and bullshit their way through an hour or two, before they start to thin out. Dinner. Studying. Friends. One says he has a date but none of them believe him. Jinki leaves at eight to cram for the test he has tomorrow, Kibum leaves at nine to catch his bus, and Jonghyun comes to collect Taemin at ten, same as ever.

Taemin spent all day waiting for him. Now he’s here and Taemin thinks he might throw up, and he’s just Jonghyun hyung. It’s okay. He won’t hate Taemin if he says the wrong thing, or he would’ve stopped talking to him a year ago. He never would have started in the first place, their first conversation would have been their last. Taemin would be alone right now.

So would Jonghyun.

He waits around while Taemin changes back into his uniform instead of changing too, and then leads him down the stairs. Taemin’s heart is like a bomb in his chest, but somehow it hasn’t gone off by the time they hit the doors. Taemin has to open his mouth before it does. Jonghyun is too busy trying to open his umbrella to catch Taemin’s eyes, but in a second they’ll step out into the rain. He has to say it right now.

“Hyung—” 

The rest is lost as Taemin’s shoulder collides with something. Someone. The creep.

As he stumbles back, Jonghyun is there to catch him, hands closing around Taemin’s arms, umbrella crumpled on the sidewalk at their feet. He starts walking before Taemin’s legs can unlock, half-dragging him across the pavement, into the rain and the night. He warned Taemin about that kind of person too, he must have meant it even more than Kibum did. What is that guy doing here this late? There’s no one left to pick up or poach or whatever it is he wants, only the two of them. He didn’t smell of alcohol, either.

“Jonghyun-ah,” a voice says from behind them. Jonghyun’s grip tightens, fingers biting into Taemin’s flesh, and with his head spinning like this, it’s all Taemin can do to keep up. “Jonghyun-ah!”

Jonghyun stops. Turns. The creep is right where they left him, suit spattered with rain, hair plastered to his forehead instead of standing on end. He doesn’t even see Taemin staring, he doesn’t even hear him say, “How do you know hyung?” His eyes are fixed on Jonghyun’s face. Taemin’s chest constricts and, “You leave him alone,” comes flying out of him. “I don’t care what company you’re from, do you think SM is crazy enough to let him go?”

The creep’s face goes strange, eyes flitting between them. “Is this a friend of yours?”

“Dongsaeng,” Jonghyun replies, holding onto Taemin tighter still even as he says, “Go wait at the bus stop, Taemin-ah. Hyung will catch up.”

What? Taemin twists in Jonghyun’s grip, only to see the face that goes with that voice. If he just started walking, would Jonghyun follow? That or let go.

“Let’s just go, hyung,” Taemin tries. “If he’s not a poacher then he’s a pervert, Kibum hyung said.”

“I’m Jonghyunnie’s father,” the creep says.

“What?” Taemin didn’t even need to ask, he should have just bit his tongue and waited. Jonghyun is going to tell him he’s crazy in a second. But that second passes, then the next, then the next the next the next, and Taemin can’t read the expression on Jonghyun’s face, and he doesn’t think he wants to, and. “Then why…I see you every day. You come here and stand around every day.”

“This was the only way I could talk to you,” the creep – _Jonghyun’s father_ – says to Jonghyun. “Whenever I call now your mother just hangs up.”

“I asked her to do that,” Jonghyun says. “There’s nothing more to say, you said it all already. So did I.”

Jonghyun’s father shakes his head, hair dripping onto his shoulders, shoes squelching as he takes another few steps towards them. “Do you really want to do this here? Come on, I’ll buy you something to eat.”

Jonghyun doesn’t move a muscle, except to pull Taemin back, and then release him. “Go on, Taeminnie.”

Taemin’s not going anywhere. Not without Jonghyun, not until the rain washes him away.

Jonghyun’s father hesitates, eyes flicking to Taemin’s face for a second, before returning to Jonghyun’s.

“She said you’re done thinking. Your mother.” His face twists into the ghost of a smile. “You weren’t thinking to begin with. Neither of you. Go back to school, Jonghyun-ah. I’ll pay for hagwon. If you get into college, I’ll pay for that too.”

Jonghyun’s face falls open, then shutters, hands curling into fists. “It’s not about money.”

“You’re not going to get rich quick doing this, even if you make it. All you’re doing is building up debt.”

“I already told you so many times, that’s not the way our company works.” Jonghyun pauses, breathing in so deep Taemin can almost feel it, this weird bursting emptiness. Or maybe that’s just Taemin’s heart going crazy again, beating faster than the raindrops hitting the pavement. “And it’s not about getting rich. I just have to make enough to support Mom and Soobin noona.”

“‘That’s more than you could do.’ That’s what you’re thinking, right?” His own words don’t even seem to hit him, but they hit Taemin, so hard they knock that feeling out of him, along with everything else inside him. “Think bigger than that, Jonghyun-ah.”

“Why do you think I’m doing this?” Jonghyun’s voice is shaking. “That’s right. Money. How did I forget so fast.”

“Jonghyun-ah—”

“Why do you do what you do, then?” Jonghyun says over him. “Just to do something? I don’t want that to be my life, that’s not even living. I’d rather die.”

_Hyung._

Before Taemin knows what he’s doing, he’s grabbed Jonghyun’s wrist, skin slippery and cold, Jonghyun’s heartbeat at his fingertips, going a million miles an hour. He can’t pull him away though, he can’t just start running and drag Jonghyun along, this is Jonghyun’s father. How far would they get anyway? They’ll end up here tomorrow no matter what, and so will he.

“You don’t know how young you sound,” Jonghyun’s father says. When he shakes his head Jonghyun goes tense all over, but then all he says is, “Fine, you made your decision, you should be able to hear out the other side. If you don’t debut—”

“I will.”

“If you don’t, where will you be?” Jonghyun’s father continues as though Jonghyun hasn’t said anything. “Try getting a good job without a high school diploma. Try telling them about Seoul Music High School, see how fast they slam the door in your face. It’s not even accredited. Don’t you know what that means?”

Jonghyun squares his shoulders, looking his father straight in the eye. “Nothing to me.”

His father looks right back. Looks and looks. The expression on his face has Taemin’s stomach opening up, but that’s nothing. Taemin is. Jonghyun is shaking and Taemin’s just standing there, letting the rain fall on him, letting this person look down at him. Dumbly, he slips his hand down Jonghyun’s wrist to tangle fold his fingers over Jonghyun’s. When he squeezes Jonghyun starts, then squeezes back, so hard it hurts.

“You won’t end up like me, Jonghyun-ah, you’ll end up worse.” Those were the words written across his face, and now they’re hanging in the air, heavier than the rain, darker than the night. “If you have kids you won’t be able to do anything for them, either. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

For one long moment it’s like Jonghyun can’t speak. Then, like he’s choking on the words, “You’re asking me that?” Next thing Taemin knows Jonghyun is yanking him around. “Come on, Taeminnie.”

“I’m trying to get you to think about your future,” his father says from behind them.

Before they can take one step his hand lands on Jonghyun’s shoulder, turning him back around, and when Jonghyun jerks away he takes Taemin with him, sending him staggering back, shoes skidding, and all Taemin can think is that he has to get between them, and.

“I am,” Jonghyun tells him. “That’s all I ever think about. If I thought about my life up till now I’d go crazy.”

When his father reaches for him again he steps back. His father’s hand falls back to his side.

“It’s not too late, Jonghyun-ah.”

“I’m going to music school. I’m going to debut.” Jonghyun’s sneer crumples in on itself before he can get out, “When you see me again it’ll be on TV.”

“Jonghyun-ah—”

“Until then we’re fucking done.”

This time when Jonghyun turns, Taemin follows him blindly, letting Jonghyun pull him forward and putting everything he has into keeping up. For moments that last eternities, all he knows is the rain spattering against the sidewalk, soaking his clothes, dripping in his eyes, cars sloshing by, city lights swimming in the air, the air pushing into his lungs, damp and heavy. Jonghyun’s hand in his, big and rough and warm and slippery, holding on so tight it feels like he’s crushing Taemin’s fingers. If Taemin could hold on tighter, he would.

The bus stop shows up out of nowhere, from another night in their lives. When Jonghyun sinks down onto the bench, Taemin sits next to him, waiting for the feeling to come back not sure what else to do. Cars glide by silently and this big grey thing that’s supposed to be the sky stares down at them, and Taemin’s head goes in circles, around and around, _is everything back to being okay already, am I just being weird, if you are okay then why won’t you look at me, should I stop looking at you—_

“Don’t say anything, Taeminnie, okay?”

At the sound of Jonghyun’s voice, Taemin’s heart stops.

_Are you crying, hyung?_

Hesitantly, Taemin reaches for him again. When his hand lands on Jonghyun’s back Jonghyun’s shoulders hunch and his breathing wrenches into a sob. He doesn’t turn away from Taemin, just buries his face in his hands, so it’s okay if Taemin doesn’t look away, right? It’s okay if he pats his back, it’s okay if he hears Jonghyun’s tears over the sound of the rain, and it’s okay if the bus comes and then goes, leaving them here. The last one won’t be for hours, and the longest Taemin’s ever cried wasn’t even half that.

_It’s okay, hyung. You’re the one who told me not to keep stuff in. You’re okay. If you’re not you will be._

“That was your dad back there, right?”

That’s not okay, that’s the one thing Jonghyun asked him not to do, and now maybe Taemin is the reason Jonghyun’s muscles tighten under his palm and he’s fighting for the air to speak when he was already fighting just to breathe, this long shuddering sigh that squeezes Taemin’s heart. Taemin is so fucking stupid.

Instead of telling Taemin that, Jonghyun tells him, “He’s not my dad, not unless he thinks I’ve fucked up. Otherwise he’s just the bastard who knocked my mom up.”

“Hyung…”

Jonghyun lifts his head, scrubbing his hands across his face roughly, before meeting Taemin’s eyes finally. He just looks like himself, the same Jonghyun hyung Taemin’s always known, except his cheeks are shining with tears and there are more already, standing in his eyes.

“It’s a long story, Taemin-ah. You wouldn’t understand, anyway.”

He’s probably right, Taemin probably wouldn’t. His dad has never waited for Taemin for days in the only place he still knew to look for him, only to look at him like that, make that kind of face, say those kinds of things. He wants to try, though. So badly. Which is why he’s asking again instead of shutting up. “He doesn’t live with you?”

Jonghyun shakes his head, face twisting. He waits it out, looking away, scrubbing at his eyes again. “He never even married her, you know that? After having two kids. He fucked off when we were little. I don’t even remember it – _him_ – but noona does.”

If Taemin’s heart is hurting this badly, what about Jonghyun’s? Taemin pats his back again, trying so hard to be gentle and not break anything, even though Jonghyun is as warm and solid as he’s always been. The next thing is to find his voice again. To say something like, “Well, he’s wrong, anyway. You haven’t fucked up.”

Jonghyun just shakes his head at Taemin. “You’re the only one who doesn’t think so.”

“What about your mom?” Taemin reminds him.

“You and her. Jiwon laughed at me.”

His girlfriend. That’s even worse than what Junmyeon said. So is, “What’s so funny about it?” but it’s too late, it’s already out of Taemin’s mouth.

“Just look at me, do I look like someone who knows what they’re doing?” Jonghyun says, voice wavering. Before Taemin can tell Jonghyun he does, he always has to Taemin, he’s telling Taemin, “I didn’t just decide out of nowhere to drop out, you know, I had a plan. I thought about it, then thought about it again, and again, until I thought I was going crazy. And then I told my mom, and she listened to me. You don’t know how scary that is, Taeminnie.”

“Taking responsibility for yourself?” Jonghyun's expression wrenches, this look like, _If that’s what you want to call it._ Which, Taemin’s just calling it what it is. When he pushes his shoulder into Jonghyun’s, Jonghyun pushes back. “You said that you wanted to write songs. They can teach you how to do that, right?”

Jonghyun glances up at him, surprised. “You remember that?”

“Was I supposed to forget?”

That’s a real question, Taemin’s really asking, but as soon as Jonghyun breaks into a watery smile he stops needing an answer. “Talking to you is so hard it’s easy. So easy it’s hard?” Jonghyun narrows his eyes at Taemin. “As soon as you put something down you forget it, you’re always losing everything, but you can remember that.”

Because it was important.

Time passes. A long time. The world keeps spinning and Seoul slows down to a crawl and Jonghyun’s breathing deepens, until Taemin forgets to listen to it. A million cars pass them by but the bus still hasn’t come back around when Taemin opens his mouth again.

“I wish I could quit school.”

He already knows Jonghyun’s reply before he says it. “Don’t say that, Taemin-ah, don’t even think about it. Wait and see how I do first.”

“Don’t worry, when I told my mom she said she’d kill me.”

Jonghyun half-smiles, tries at least, leaning back on his hands and crossing his legs. His sigh is still a little shaky, but his voice is so close to normal when he says, “Shit. She liked me, too.”

“Why would she stop? She’s not that kind of person, hyung. You should know that by now.” Taemin hesitates. “What about your mom, is she really okay with it?”

For one long moment, Jonghyun doesn’t answer. “It’s my life, Taeminnie.”

“Next time I’ll tell mine that,” Taemin says.

“It’s not a joke. If this doesn’t work out I’m fucked, he was right about that.” Jonghyun holds Taemin’s eyes long enough to make sure that went in somewhere, before he has to turn away again, blinking fast, struggling with himself. What’s the point, when Taemin can hear it all in his voice as he says, “I would be anyway, is the thing. This is it for me. Without music I’d be as good as dead, if I don’t debut I’d rather just die.”

Taemin’s stomach twists and before he can even think he’s saying, ”Stop talking like that, hyung.”

“Sorry, Taemin-ah.” Jonghyun smiles faintly at the look on Taemin’s face. “This is what hyung is really like. I must look like a loser.”

“You don’t think I feel the same way?” Taemin says. “I’ve told you I do so many times now, I just didn’t say it like that.” Now he’s the one who can’t look anymore, all of the sudden. When Taemin’s voice catches in his throat, though, all he has to do is clear it and try again. “Focusing on bad shit won’t help you, hyung. You said you hated the word if, remember.”

Jonghyun fumbles to pinch Taemin’s cheek, so clumsy and gentle Taemin’s heart just hurts more. “You remember all kinds of stuff.”

“It sounds like you do too,” Taemin says. He hesitates to say the word, to taste its bitterness, but maybe Jonghyun needs to hear it. “If you don’t make it, you’ll have lots of time to think about it then, anyway.” And maybe it’ll make Jonghyun laugh, maybe that’s what that was just now, this broken sound like he’s forgotten how. It takes so much less to return Jonghyun’s smile than Taemin had thought it would. “Just do your best, hyung. Keep doing it until you can do better.”

Jonghyun nods, sniffing hard, wiping his eyes one last time. When he slouches into Taemin’s side, Taemin stays right where he is, folding his hands in his lap and staring out into the night, watching the rain slow to a drip. Taemin is okay if they’re done talking, sitting here feeling Jonghyun relax against him, little by little, but then Jonghyun says, “Taemin-ah.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Taemin assures him.

“I know you wouldn’t, it’s not that.” Taemin can feel Jonghyun’s eyes on his face again. “Thanks.”

“What for?”

“I don’t know. For not laughing at me.”

That again. “Why would I?”

Jonghyun laughs again, for real this time, that sound Taemin knows so well.

“For being you,” Jonghyun tells him. Taemin’s ears go hot, which probably means they’re turning red, so it’s safer to turn and let Jonghyun see his face instead. The smile on Jonghyun’s is like a secret. “Why is the bus so late? Shit.”

It’ll come back around eventually.

The next time they get off at Dongdaemun, it’s weeks later and the moon is shining down on them, same as the sun did all day. Taemin always forgets how hot September is, this weird in between time that still looks and feels like summer. He’ll have to wait another few weeks still before Jonghyun will eat kimchi stew with him again. Until then…naengmyun?

“I was thinking tteokbokki,” Jonghyun says. Then, all in a rush, “It’s okay if you don’t want to, it’s okay if you want real food.”

Taemin likes tteokbokki. And besides, they could always get soondae or fishcakes too~

Instead of telling Taemin he’s going broke because of him, Jonghyun beams down at him, so bright it makes Taemin dizzy. Before Taemin even knows what’s happening, Jonghyun’s tangled their fingers together, pulling him along with the promise, “I know someplace good.”

His hand is sweaty, but Taemin doesn’t care, as long as Jonghyun doesn’t mind if his is too. It’s still so hot. Even hotter after spending all day in SM’s air conditioning, plus the last thirty minutes with the bus window cracked open, Jonghyun leaning in next to him to feel the breeze.

Jonghyun takes him way past the night market, past the streets he knows, past the neighborhoods he probably should, until finally they reach a street stall with yellow awnings. They’ve passed like fifty just like it along the way. Taemin has had all this time ask Jonghyun what is so special about this place, what has Jonghyun holding onto him so tight even after the crowds thinned and they could cross roads without waiting for the light, but somehow all that matters is that to Jonghyun, it is. When Jonghyun squeezes through the maze of tables and rickety plastic chairs to sit at the counter, Taemin follows him without hesitation. It’s okay. The ahjumma doesn’t look scary and anyway, Jonghyun will do all the talking. He always does.

“Tteokbokki?” the ahjumma asks. She’s so short Taemin is almost taller than her sitting down.

“And fishcakes,” Jonghyun replies without asking Taemin again. “Soondae too.”

It’s his money~

The ahjumma clicks her tongue at Jonghyun, though, shaking her head. “Aigoo. Since when do you eat that much?”

Since when did Jonghyun start coming here? He doesn’t even know the kimchi stew ahjumma’s name after a year. 

Jonghyun just smiles. “Not me.”

The ahjumma’s eyes flit to Taemin’s face. It’s so much easier to meet them than he’d thought it would be, somehow. At least until she says, “This must be Taeminnie. I was beginning to wonder if Jonghyunnie had made you up.”

What? When Taemin glances at Jonghyun, his smile has widened, eyes crinkling up, and all he says is, “I told you he was cute.”

“Hyung, who…?”

Suddenly the ahjumma swoops in to pinch Jonghyun’s cheeks. “Aigoo~” 

Jonghyun just sits there and waits until she frees him, smiling like crazy and not even trying to hide it when he turns to Taemin again. “In my family I’m the maknae.” Family. Then this is… “It’s weird, right?” Jonghyun goes on in a rush, expression like he’s stepped out into nothing, eyes fixed on Taemin’s face like he’s terrified Taemin will give him a push. Before Taemin can even say anything, he clarifies, “Seeing what hyung puts up with,” even though that's not what he meant, and he has to know Taemin knows that. He’s too busy watching Taemin to dodge when the ahjumma leans in, pinching him again. “Ah, Mom~”

Mom. Jonghyun’s mother. Taemin starts from his stool, already halfway into a bow, but Jonghyun stops him with a hand on his arm.

“I’d never heard anyone call you that before, is all. Hyung.”

She turns to Taemin again. He should have been ready with a nod at least, the words to introduce himself, just something other than sitting here and staring at her dumbly, but she already knows his name anyway. And even if Jonghyun hasn’t told her everything, she probably already knows him, too. When she smiles at Taemin, he smiles back. It fits on his face like normal, like the real thing. Probably because it is.

“All of his friends are his age or older,” she tells him as she ladles tteokbokki onto a plate, then piles it high with fishcakes and soondae. When she pushes it across the counter, she places it directly in front of Taemin. “Make sure he’s taking good care of you, Taemin-ah. It’ll help him grow up.”

Taemin’s laughter takes him by surprise. Jonghyun’s eyes widen and he demands, “What’s so funny? I don’t take good enough care of you already?” but that doesn’t help at all. It wasn’t supposed to, either, or else Jonghyun wouldn’t be laughing too, or shooting him stupid smiles he’s probably not supposed to see while his mom deals with the next customer, petting his hair and telling him, “Eat, Taeminnie. Do you want the egg? It must be for you, she never gives me one.”

Jonghyun’s hand is still laid over Taemin’s right arm, sweaty as ever. Taemin picks his chopsticks up with his left.

The tteokbokki here is really good. Better than Taemin’s mom’s, even. He’ll eat well.


	7. Noraebang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys are all taking care of yourselves. <3
> 
> ETA: Again, I don't know how many of you guys will see this or if this kind of update is even necessary haha, but I'm done with all my papers, which means I'm free to write fic again! I'm a little rusty so idk how long it will take me to write the next chapter compared to normal, but I am working on it. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding (I get how frustrating reading WIP's can be haha), and I hope everyone is safe and healthy. <3

When Taemin opens his locker a slip of paper flutters to the floor. A note for one of the hyungs? Probably. Jonghyun’s gotten like ten of them, even though everyone knows he has a girlfriend. 

Taemin bends over to pick it up. _Noraebang on Friday,_ it tells him helpfully. _Or else!_

He doesn’t recognize the handwriting, either. Whatever. He remembers it long enough to stuff it in the pocket of his track pants instead of his uniform, but then he only forgets it until he’s changed and returned to the practice room and sunk to the floor next to Jinki hyung. Jinki hyung looks up from his book, eyes flitting from Taemin’s face to the clock, before he sticks a paper between the pages and snaps it shut, sliding it across the floor to the wall. A paper exactly like the one in Taemin’s pocket. 

“Does yours say the same thing, about going to a noraebang or something?” Taemin asks him. Jinki just blinks at him. “That paper. I got one too.”

“What did you think, that you were the only one who did?” Kibum says from behind him. 

Before Taemin can twist around to look at him, he’s dropped down beside him. Jonghyun too. At first the only thing those two had in common was Taemin, but now they’ve both survived rumors. Kibum’s fight must have been really bad if people still remember it a year later, but the fights Jonghyun’s had with his girlfriend are probably even worse, since he’s broken up with her five hundred times in the last few months. In a few days, he’ll probably be telling Taemin they got back together again, and part of Taemin will be wishing Jonghyun would go back to never telling him anything. Only part, though. Anything is better than hearing it from the other hyungs again. _How many times is he going to crawl back? It’s pathetic at this point. She must put out._

Right now Jonghyun is narrowing his eyes at Taemin, mouth curling into a smirk. “You thought it was a confession letter, didn’t you?”

Taemin’s ears go hot. “From who? I don’t even talk to any girls here.”

“It’s not that they don’t talk to you~?” Kibum piles on.

“Aigoo, look how red he is.” When Jonghyun leans in to pinch Taemin’s cheek, Taemin brushes his hand away. Jonghyun just laughs, leaning back on his hands, telling Taemin finally, “It was all Sooyoung’s idea.” Who? “Choi Sooyoung. You’ve seen her before, Taemin-ah. You can’t miss her. She’s the tallest girl here.”

One of the ones who’re still taller than Taemin, then. He’s all the way up to the tip of Jonghyun’s nose now, since Jonghyun hasn’t grown in forever.

“If she’s trying to make things seem normal, stuff like this won’t work,” Kibum says. “Since when are we all friends?”

“Since when do you have to be friends to go to a noraebang together?” Jinki retorts. “There’s almost fifty of us, if we all say yes she’s in trouble.”

“It’s more likely no one will.” Jonghyun smiles faintly. “What day did it say again?”

Taemin fumbles for the slip of paper, crumpled up in his pocket, but before he can smooth it out, Jinki is already saying, “Friday, after evals.” He pauses, and Taemin looks up to find this weird look on his face. “After the last cut.”

For the new girl group, he means. At the beginning of last month, Taemin came to training, only to find a crowd surrounding the notice board outside the practice room. Instead of fighting his way to the front, he took the chance to change while the bathrooms were empty. He never even had to read what the announcement said, though, because every single person he came across was talking about it, down the hallway and into the practice room, in the cafeteria after that, and then at the convenience store, when it was just down to him and Jonghyun and Kibum. The company didn’t say how many members or what their concept would be or anything, just that they would debut this summer. 2007. When they finished their ramyun and stepped out into the night, the air stung their faces, and by the time their bus came, the rest of Taemin was numb with cold too. Jonghyun told him, _I heard they were going to keep adding members to Super Junior after Kyuhyun hyung, but I guess not?_ And at the look on Taemin’s face, _You’re disappointed right now, but tomorrow you’ll be happy it’s not us._ He was right, because that’s when the questions started.

Who’s going to make it? Will they leave if they don’t?

“What do you think, Taemin-ah?” Jonghyun says. Taemin looks up to find Jonghyun watching his face, almost like he’s trying to read it. “You don’t have school on Saturday, you did last week.”

He’s probably worried about leaving Taemin to go home alone. Right?

“I don’t know,” Taemin says haltingly. “I was going to stay late—”

“So was everyone, Taeminnie,” Kibum interrupts him.

—_but I can get myself home._ Like he’s told Jonghyun a million times before. Maybe that wasn’t it after all. Taemin hesitates, stomach knotting up. He’s being so dumb, it should not be this hard to meet Jonghyun’s eyes, he’s just Jonghyun hyung. “What about you, hyung?”

Before Jonghyun can reply, Kibum tells them, “You’re all coming, so you can skip to deciding whose floor I’m sleeping on.” At the looks they give him, he huffs, “I can’t go otherwise, I’ll get locked out of the dorms by ten.”

His only other friends here are all girls. Taemin thinks about telling him that he’s not like Jonghyun, most of their parents probably wouldn’t care, but then Jonghyun would probably smirk and ask, _What am I like?_ Or maybe Taemin would just make him think about all the shit that's been said about him.

All Taemin knows is that if he were a girl, there’s no way Taemin’s dad would tell Taemin to let Jonghyun sleep in his bed because he was too lazy to get more bedding out. Taemin’s mom would probably ask him all kinds of weird questions every night after Jonghyun went home, and Taewoo would probably tell Taemin to marry him so that he could have Jonghyun as a brother.

But Taemin is a boy, and this is about Kibum, and.

“My mom won’t care,” Taemin says. He busies himself with his stretches, face burning along with his muscles. Beside him Jinki follows suit, groaning like an old man. He catches Taemin’s eye and grimaces like he’s dying, and when he breaks into a smile, he’s only returning Taemin’s.

“Ask her if you can stay out that late first,” Jonghyun says.

“You ask yours,” Taemin retorts.

Jonghyun’s laughter catches in his throat. Did Taemin embarrass him? Whatever. It’s not like the others know how much Jonghyun’s mom babies him. But then Jonghyun leans in to pet Taemin’s hair, hand so warm and heavy on his head.

“Tell her I’ll be with you, that should be good enough.”

“You can stay over too if it’s too late,” Taemin offers, like he even needed to.

Jonghyun just laughs again, that one that says Taemin is being weird. Which he is. “Aigoo, thank you.”

“I meant you too, Jinki hyung,” Kibum is saying. “Seriously. You look like you could use some fun.”

Jinki relaxes with a groan, leaning back on his hands. “We’ll see how far I get on my homework.”

Finals are coming up. All Taemin has to worry about is not failing, but Jinki is going into his third year of high school in March. He might even apply to college next year. It made no sense to Taemin when Jinki first told him he was thinking about it. It’s starting to now, though, after two months of bad rumors and fights in the hallways, girls going on diets Taemin couldn’t survive, ones who’ve been here longer than him giving up and leaving.

Maybe he just needs a break, too.

Jonghyun and Jinki stay after their dance lesson to go through everything again with Taemin, the same as they’ve done for a year, but Jonghyun only lasts through the tenth time, before he ruffles Taemin’s hair and heads for the vocal room. He would have forgotten to change if Kibum hadn’t told him he looked gross. Which he didn’t, he just looked hot and sweaty, but Taemin wasn’t going to tell him that, and anyway, who cares? The point is that Jonghyun is good enough at dancing now that he doesn’t need to be in here all night. He’s good enough at singing that he doesn’t need to lock himself up in the vocal room, either, though. Taemin has nothing else to do, nowhere he’d rather be, but Jonghyun is different. He could be on a date right now. Every night he spends here is a night he doesn’t see his girlfriend, and those add up into another breakup, and the breakups all become rumors, and Jonghyun never gets away from those, since he’s always here, and. And Taemin needs to stop thinking about this so much. _Focus._

Minutes drag by. Hours. The song pounds into him and Jinki over and over and over, until he can’t even hear it anymore, just feels it. He misses Jinki saying good night until Jinki’s hand scrubs through his hair, big and warm. He looks up to find Jinki smiling at him. Trying to. It looks like harder work than all those hours of dancing did.

“You have a test tomorrow?” Taemin guesses.

Jinki’s smile-like-thing fades from his face. “I have to go to an all-night study room after this. If I go home I’ll just fall asleep.”

“You’re not going to sleep there?”

Lots of people do. Taewoo went once because all his friends were doing it, and he admitted to Taemin that he gave up after two hours and woke up with his head in his textbook. He had to peel the pages off his cheek. Jinki is a lot smarter than Taewoo, though. 

“The chair is hard, at least. It’ll take me longer to feel tired.” Jinki pets Taemin’s hair again. “Let’s just hope there’re still seats left. If I get there and I have to go back…”

Jinki sighs and shakes his head, like it’s exhausting just finishing that thought, and shuffles over to his locker.

“Fighting, hyung,” is all Taemin knows to say. The practice room feels so empty once Jinki is gone. Taemin’s feet echo with each step and the lights grow harsher every time he blinks, and the clock gets louder with every tick. No matter how hard he strains his ears, though, Jonghyun’s footsteps don’t echo down the hallway, the door doesn’t open, Jonghyun’s voice doesn’t tell him, _It’s ten already. Come on, Taemin-ah, there’s no way you’re not hungry._

At ten fifteen Taemin goes to change, then sets off for the vocal rooms. He doesn’t need to check for Jonghyun to know which one he’ll find him in, not when tonight is a replay of the last ten. Or not. When he slides down the wall to sit and wait, he finds Soojung sitting across the hall from him, hugging her knees.

“Who are you waiting for?” she asks, since it’s too late to pretend their eyes didn’t meet. They’ve never even really talked, but before he can answer, she guesses, “Jonghyun oppa, huh.”

Is it that obvious? Soojung talks to Jonghyun all the time, though, he’s probably said all kinds of stuff about Taemin.

Taemin takes a guess too. “Your sister?”

“Mm.”

It’s like Kibum said, every female trainee is staying late these days. Jonghyun and Taemin haven’t been the last ones to leave since that first announcement. Soojung is younger than Taemin even and was never in the running, but Sooyeon has made it this far. Just a little further and she’ll be on the other side.

“Did they say how many members they want yet?” Taemin says.

She nods. “Nine.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Mm.”

Something in her face makes Taemin’s chest squeeze a little. Unsure, he tries, “More is better, right? She has more of a chance.”

“It wouldn’t matter if they only wanted one, she’d still make it,” she counters immediately. Taemin didn’t mean she wouldn’t, not at all, but before he can say sorry, she cuts across him again. “No, it’s okay, I was just saying. And I said it wrong, it has to be two at least. No one can beat Taeyeon unnie.”

Not even Jonghyun. Even if they’re not competing directly, he’s not a girl, she could never take his place in a group, it still kills him to come in second to her every time. He always pretends it doesn’t, but sometimes on the nights after evals that he ends up staying over at Taemin’s place, he’ll admit it right as Taemin is about to fall asleep. Taemin is probably supposed to wake up thinking he dreamed it. Like he dreams about Jonghyun at all.

Anyway. Taemin clears his throat. “Is she still here, too?”

Soojung nods again. “She’s been sleeping here. She’s lucky, she’s dorming so she can.”

“Isn’t there a curfew?” Taemin blurts out. Or was Kibum lying? He never thinks Taemin will catch on when he does.

“Not for her,” Soojung says. “She has something set up with the resident head, or something. That’s what Jinri told me.”

“Jinri?”

Soojung wrinkles her nose at him, like somehow that’s the dumbest question he’s asked yet. “You don’t know her? Seriously? She’s been in a bunch of dramas, she basically already debuted. She lives with Taeyeon and Miyoung unnie.”

Oh. Taemin has probably seen her around, same as Sooyoung. He doesn’t know how to tell Soojung that he forgets everything else as soon as he goes into the practice room, and that by the time he gets out, Jonghyun is the only person left. Up until recently, at least. Now that he gets his cheeks pinched by like five different noonas before he can reach the doors, he’s out of excuses.

“You didn’t sound like you believed what you said earlier, either,” Soojung says out of nowhere. “That more members is better, I mean.”

Probably because he was just saying that. It wasn’t what Soojung needed to hear anyway, so he might as well just stick with the truth. “It’s more like I hadn’t thought about being in a group? Before I auditioned, I mean. All the singers I liked did everything themselves.”

“Like Boa sunbaenim?”

“Like Rain,” Taemin corrects her before he can stop himself. Soojung makes a face at him, like she thinks it bothers him getting compared to a woman or something. Which it doesn’t, it’s just, “He’s the reason I wanted to learn to dance. Him and Michael Jackson. I wanted to be like him. I still do.”

“You better work on your abs then~” is all Soojung has to say to that. Taemin doesn’t realize she got him to smile until she smiles back, a little shy. “I’m the opposite. If you’re on your own, you can’t hide your fuckups. Plus I’ve finally made friends here, I don’t want to go back to not having any.”

Taemin’s gotten used to it. And besides, he doesn’t have to worry about leaving Jonghyun or Kibum or Jinki behind, when it’ll be the other way around. There’s no way Jonghyun and Jinki won’t make it into the next boy group, and if Kibum doesn’t, he might end up leaving for another company or moving on with his life before the one after that comes. Taemin will be stuck here alone, and by the time he debuts, they’ll probably all have forgotten him.

Just then Jonghyun hits a high note, faint through the door. It prickles across Taemin’s skin and squeezes his heart and shivers in the air. It doesn’t seem to reach Soojung from across the hall, though, or at least it doesn’t hit her the same way. Her expression is the exact same. Taemin has no clue what his looks like, so he draws his knees up to his chest and buries his face in his arms and waits for it to go back to normal.

The next day dawns as dull and ugly as the day he and Jonghyun first met and gets darker and uglier all through school, almost as dark pressing in on the windows of the bus as the black blur in the subway, but this time he just barely beats the rain inside. Instead of practice, though, today he has to sit through enunciation lessons, so it’s good he doesn’t need to change. As it is, he has to drag himself up the extra flight of stairs and down the hallway. Then up again, because that was the wrong way. They only have class every few weeks, so it’s not that big a waste of his time, except it is. He doesn’t get why they put him in here when he could be dancing, but when he asked his mom to ask the program head that, she told him this class would teach him to ask that himself. Which it hasn’t.

Finally he finds the right door. As he turns the knob, a voice filters through, so loud Taemin almost shuts it again, because what if there’s a fight. It’s just Minho, though. Rapping. His eyes snap to Taemin’s face, until Taemin remembers himself and makes his way over to take a seat next to him. Minho clears his throat, chair squeaking as he shifts his weight. All Taemin has to do is lay his head down on the table, though, and Minho finds his flow again, at least until the next person comes in. Then his voice dies to a mumble. Nothing ever matters to any of the hyungs if Taemin hears it, but anyone else…

“Don’t even think about falling asleep,” Minho warns Taemin. His hand lands on Taemin’s back, thumping it. “You’ll just get more tired like that. Come on, sit up.”

When Taemin raises his head again Minho meets his eyes no problem.

“Is rapping hard?”

Not as hard as figuring out how to talk to Minho, probably, especially since he replies, “I didn’t make it look easy?” Before Taemin can figure out how to answer, his face cracks into a smile. “I’m kidding, Taemin-ah. Haven’t they been teaching you too?”

To rap?

“I’m auditing vocal lessons,” Taemin says, a little too quickly. Maybe he can’t sing, and maybe the program doesn’t think that sentence should end in “yet” the way Taemin does, but still. 

“What are you doing taking these lessons, then?” Minho frowns. “Never mind. I guess they’re waiting to see how much your voice deepens.”

“They said it was supposed to help with speaking or something,” Taemin tries to explain, but that’s no good either. He resists the urge to put his head down again, but Minho never lets anything go. “The way I talk isn’t the problem, though. It’s my personality.”

“Because you’re shy,” Minho agrees, instead of telling Taemin he’s fine the way he is, the way Jonghyun always does. He’s right, though. “That’s not something the company can teach you, Taemin-ah. You have to push yourself.”

Taemin _does._ He pushed himself to say good morning to the bus driver when he got on and he pushed himself to step through the school doors and struggle through the crowds to reach his own classroom. He had to push himself really hard to go in. To laugh when the rest of the class laughed, to smile through it when it was at him, to stay awake through all his teachers’ lectures. He even pushed himself to come sit next to Minho instead of grabbing a seat on the opposite side of the room and pretending to sleep until class started. The problem is, every single day of his life, he wishes he’d plugged his ears with headphones and pretended to listen to music on the way to school, then slept through it and woken up in the practice room. He’ll never be able to push hard enough to make himself change.

“If I debut I’ll get put in a group, anyway, someone else can do the talking,” Taemin says, ignoring the lurch in his stomach at his own words.

Minho shakes his head at him. “See, you’re giving yourself an out, that’s exactly what you don’t want to be doing. Try and talk to one new person a day, see how that goes.”

“I’d run out of people really fast, I don’t know that many.”

Minho just smiles again.

“There are like sixty of us in the program. You talk to three. Three and a half, if you want to include me, even though I’m the one who talks to you.”

Taemin knows he’s right, already. If he can’t even say that out loud, that makes Minho even more right. Whatever. He’ll probably have years before the next boy group comes around to figure out how.

Or just one year. Months, maybe. By the time he knows for sure it’ll be too late for him to change.

“Did they let you pick between rapping and vocals?” Taemin says, instead of any of that.

Minho hesitates for one split second, before folding his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair and giving Taemin an emphatic, “Mm.”

Really? He’s not lying, though, Minho doesn’t lie. So Taemin is left not getting it. “You don’t want to sing?”

“I want to debut,” Minho replies evenly. “Rapping is my best option, especially since no one else is taking it.”

Taemin can’t sing and he’d rather die than learn to rap, which means his first and last option is dancing. That and learning to act cute. He slouches back in his chair too, stretching his legs out underneath the table. The tips of his shoes barely line up with Minho’s ankles.

“Kibum hyung told me this job is about doing shit you don’t want to do.”

Minho’s expression goes a little strange, but he’s looking at Taemin like he’s the weird one. Or like Kibum is, because he blurts out, “What is he even doing here, if that’s what he thinks?” And then the rest of it catches up with him, and he goes back to frowning at Taemin instead. “I never said I didn’t want to rap, Taemin-ah. Being realistic about it doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

Taemin is the best dancer in the program, but he’s not the best there is. It’d be too easy for someone better to join and take that away from him. And even if they didn’t, even if he manages to hang on until he has his chance, he still might blow it. He’s the best at one thing, but he can’t do anything else. He’s too young. No matter how pretty Jonghyun says he is or how many chocolates he used to get on Valentine’s Day in elementary school, there’s no way girls would see in him the things they see in Siwon or Donghae or Jaejoong, let alone _Rain,_ whatever he told Soojung. And then he’ll be the one left deciding when the end really is the end, same as all the noonas who have left the program. Whether he keeps dreaming or wakes up, he’ll have the rest of his life to hate himself.

Realistic. Taemin fucking hates that word. He’s not going to tell Minho that either, though, so instead he gets to sit here some more with his stomach curling in on itself, waiting for their tutor’s heels clicking down the hall.

“Are you going to the noraebang after evals?” Minho asks him suddenly.

He nudges Taemin with his shoulder, getting, “Jonghyun hyung is,” out of him. And Kibum and Jinki, which means Taemin is too. He could have just said that.

“Sooyoung noona caught me yesterday so I’m stuck. If I don’t she’ll kill me.” Minho hesitates. “Is Kibum going?”

“He’s the one who caught me. Why?”

“Just asking,” Minho says, before hesitating again, then adding all in a rush, “It seems like there’ll be a lot of guys. Noona told me all the girls left are coming, but I don’t know. I can’t not show up, in case none of them do.”

Would Taemin, if he’d been through what they have? Maybe if Jonghyun had been through all the same things and still wanted to go. And even then, only to watch and make sure he didn’t cry in front of anyone else. Or to say goodbye for the last time.

Just then the door swings open and Seonsaengnim sails in and Taemin’s life is going to keep right on going, with or without him. Definitely with him, since Minho digs his elbow into Taemin’s side and pushes his foot into his and volunteers Taemin to go first.

Taemin gets through it.

On Friday, evals start at two like normal and stretch until seven. Taemin gets his out of the way pretty fast, and he retreats to the practice room instead of sticking around to watch anyone else, since the tension is so thick he can barely breathe. Jonghyun comes to collect Taemin at seven thirty. That’s two and a half whole hours of dancing, plus maybe another hour waiting for Jonghyun to come interrupt him. It’s the same for Kibum, though, and Jonghyun, and it’s also hours and hours Jinki could have spent studying, so Taemin gives it up.

The noraebang is only a few blocks away, anyway. Sooyoung isn’t as tall as Jonghyun said, she’s only around Jonghyun’s height, but her smile when she sees them coming up the sidewalk is blinding.

“Some of the others already went inside,” she says. “I’m just getting a head count so I know who to kill on Monday.”

Not Minho. He shows up as promised right after them, with Junmyeon in tow. Since he’s Jonghyun’s friend too, they all go in together, leaving Sooyoung with the next wave of hyungs. The second floor already filled up with the kids who got here first, but there’s still one room open at the end of the hallway on the third.

“I don’t know how long I should stay,” Jinki tells Taemin as they climb up the stairs. Jonghyun went ahead of them, laughing with Kibum and Junmyeon.

“The study room again?”

Jinki shakes his head. “You were right, I fell asleep last time. I might as well do that at home.”

He definitely won’t be able to fall asleep here, even if he’d never be able to concentrate on anything either. It’s noisy and crowded and gets even noisier and more crowded when they shut themselves away and turn the machine on. Then it’s just spinning lights and shouting and singing and arguing over which ones they want to do first, for what feels like hours and hours and hours. The last time Taemin visited a noraebang was with his friends, back when he still had them. Now he just has hyungs. 

No one notices when Taemin slips out to go the bathroom. Jonghyun forgot he even existed as soon as he got ahold of the microphone, Jinki is so loud he doesn’t need one, Kibum is too busy making fun of their song selection, and Minho is too busy sitting in the corner, probably hating Junmyeon for leaving early and leaving him with those three. He didn’t even take a single turn when Junmyeon was still there, though.

Taemin doesn’t even have to go, he just wanted out. It was too hot in there. And too boring, but not at the same time. He splashes water on his face and stares into his own eyes in the mirror. The pimple on his cheek looks as big as it feels, stretching his skin, but if he tries to pop it the lady from the program will yell at him about scarring. Will it really go down on its own? Whatever. If they pick Taemin it won’t be for his looks, and it’s not as though he has someone he likes, so he doesn’t have to care right now.

He still has to go back in there, though. If he just went home that’d be too weird. As soon as he realized Taemin was gone Jonghyun would call his mom, if he didn’t catch Taemin before he could even reach the bus stop on the corner. After running all that way, maybe he’d ditch the others too and sit with Taemin under the stars, or maybe he’d say, _If you weren’t having fun you could have said something. Come on, you haven’t even had a turn yet and we paid for another whole hour._ Taemin doesn’t need Jonghyun to grab his wrist and drag him back to the room, though. He remembers the way, down the hall and up the stairs and down that hall and around the corner and yeah.

He gets maybe two steps before he freezes. There’s someone in his way, sitting on the floor with her face buried in her hands. Taeyeon. _Crying._ Taemin’s stomach wrenches, then twists up as she lets out this sob. Should he say something? Or should he be walking away and pretending he never saw? That’s what he’d want, if it were him, but it’s not, and.

The floor creaks under his foot and she jolts upright, eyes red. For one horrible second, her silence strangles Taemin.

“Sorry, noona,” he gets out.

“Why would you be?” When her voice comes out shaky her face splits into a watery smile, almost like she’s laughing at herself, before she clears her throat and tries again. “I’m the one who picked the worst place to cry. The bathroom is right there and here I am. Shit.”

“Do you want some paper towels?”

She’s already scrubbing her tears away with her hand, though, and then she pats the place next to her. Taemin hesitates, then sinks down next to her, wall cold and hard at his back. When they split off into different rooms, the kids from the program took up this whole hallway and the one upstairs, but most of the windows Taemin passed on his way to the bathroom were dark, and most of the ones down here are too. They must have all gone home already.

Taemin doesn’t know how to say this, he’d rather die than try, but he’s the only one here.

“You didn’t make it?”

Taeyeon’s expression twists, and for one long moment Taemin is terrified he’s going to make her cry harder, but then she snorts out a laugh instead. “I did. It’s not official until Monday, but unofficially, they let us know.”

“Then why—?” _You should be happy, this should be the happiest you’ve been since you first started, why are you crying?_ You can’t just ask people that, though, so Taemin bites his tongue and goes with, “Sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” Taeyeon says sharply, before she softens again. “And it’s okay, anyway. I know I’m being stupid.”

“Is it because you’re happy?” Taemin guesses. “Some people get like that.”

Taeyeon frowns, almost like she needs to think about it. Taemin gets that. “More like...tension is draining away? Nah, that’s not either. I guess I just let the stress get to me.”

He gets that too. Way too much. 

“How much worse is it?” he asks.

“For me, a lot. If I’d known it would get this hard I never would’ve auditioned in the first place.” Taeyeon scrubs at her eyes again, but when she smiles at Taemin, it’s for real. “For you, though…I don’t know. It looks like you’re harder on yourself than SM is. I didn’t realize you stayed so late every night until I started doing it too.”

It’s probably different for singing than it is for dancing. Taemin needs space to move, and there’s not enough of it anywhere but the practice room. You can sing anywhere, though, as long as it’s not too late or too early or the people around you are trying to concentrate. Jonghyun says he started using the vocal room so much because his singing got on his sister’s nerves, and that he started staying in there longer and longer because every little distraction outside that door started getting on his.

Jonghyun isn’t the point, though, and anyway, Taemin reminds her, “If I weren’t at practice I’d be at hagwon.”

“I guess,” Taeyeon allows. She narrows her eyes at him, and even if with them red and puffy, it’s still scary. “How old are you again? Jonghyunnie talks about you like you’re a baby.”

“I’m fifteen.”

At least he will be soon. The New Year is still a few weeks away and his birthday isn’t until this summer.

“I was sixteen when I started here,” Taeyeon tells him. “I almost quit a couple times.”

It’s out of Taemin’s mouth before he can stop himself: “You?”

Taeyeon just smiles again. “It’s not my voice, Taemin-ah. It’s everything else. My personality is all wrong for this. I’m gonna suck so much at being an idol.”

“I am too. If I make it, I mean.” It was so hard to admit it to Minho, but somehow it’s so easy to tell her. “I never know the right thing to say.”

The words are barely out of Taemin’s mouth when Taeyeon’s hand is on his head, petting his hair clumsily. He’s so used to Jonghyun’s, all big and warm and rough, that hers feels even smaller. She says the same thing he probably would have, though. “You’re so cute you don’t even need to. Aigoo.”

He doesn’t know how to tell her that’s not what he’s wanted to hear, it never has been. He doesn’t even try, since his face is betraying him anyway, breaking into this weird halfway smile. 

“Congratulations, noona,” Taemin says instead. “Even if you don’t want to hear it right now, I wanted to say that. You did really well.”

She takes her time answering that, blinking fast, then looking away. Taemin looks away, too, down the hall, too-dark and too-quiet. As the next song thuds on in the room below, Taeyeon finally says, “I don’t know if you know, but people talk about you the same way they always talked about me. That you’ll get in automatically, if not the next boy group, then the one after that.”

What? Taemin’s heart does this weird thing, flying and falling at the exact same time. When he finds his voice again it’s so hard to keep it normal, to get out, “I don’t know if our company cares that much about dancing.”

“I don’t know either, it depends on what kind of group they decide on. No one knows anything, you’d think they’d talk less.” Taeyeon shakes her head and catches Taemin’s eyes. Hers are finally dry. “Anyway, the point was, don’t let anything they say fuck with you. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing, okay? You better. I want to be able to congratulate you too.”

She pats Taemin’s head again. For one long moment it’s like Taemin is choking on his voice, and all he can do is nod and wait for it to pass. Which it does, as quickly as it came. Why does he make no sense? Asking Taeyeon that would do no good, though. She knows his situation better than anyone, but she doesn’t know him.

When Taemin glances at her she catches his eye again. “Did they give you guys a name?”

She nods, grimacing. “A really hokey one. Girls’ Generation.”

It could be worse?

“I won’t tell anyone you cried,” Taemin promises. The last person he said that to was Jonghyun, that one night last summer.

“Taemin-ah.”

Jonghyun.

Which, what? Taemin looks up to find him walking up to them, that expression on his face that means he’s about to explode, laughing or yelling or maybe more crying. Not that last thing. The second one. “What are you even doing here? I’ve been looking all over for you, you’re lucky I came down here to check the bathroom, I thought maybe someone had taken you or something.” Then his eyes land on Taeyeon, and he falters. “Noona?”

She climbs to her feet, telling Jonghyun, “I wanted someone to talk to so I stole him for a while.”

Jonghyun’s eyes dart to Taemin again as he scrambles up too, then back to her, which is when he gets his first good look at her face. There’s no way he could miss the tracks of her tears or how red her eyes still are, all the tiny cracks still in her expression. Taemin knows he hasn’t when Jonghyun says in the dumbest voice he can muster, “Did you talk about me?”

_You want me to act normal, right?_

“It wouldn’t have taken that long if they did, they would’ve gotten bored too fast,” Kibum says from behind him. What is he doing here too? Before Taemin can ask, Kibum just shakes his head and reaches for him, taking him by the wrist and pulling him over to his side.

“Speaking of which, is Jinki hyung still singing ballads?” Jonghyun says.

He doesn’t look mad anymore, so it’s probably safe for Taemin to point out, “You were the one hogging the mic when I left.”

Or not? Jonghyun narrows his eyes at him, but then he laughs, breathless and ragged. It doesn’t even hurt when he pinches Taemin’s cheek, stretching his smile.

“He went to the bathroom like right after you said you were going to check for Taeminnie.” Who? Oh. Jinki. Kibum shoots Jonghyun a look Taemin can’t read. “You left me in there with Minho.”

Right on cue, a toilet flushes, and then Jinki emerges. Taeyeon doesn’t stick around to hang out, just nods at the others and pets Taemin’s hair one last time and heads back down the hall towards whatever room she had left. If she were anyone else she’d probably have gone down the stairs instead, into the free open air, the starlight and the city, people who won’t know her name or care where she’s been for the past fifteen minutes or if she looks like she’s been crying. At least until this summer, they won’t.

Taemin goes back up to their room, too. Jonghyun doesn’t even tell him the whole way that he needs to be more careful or he’ll give Jonghyun a heart attack, that Jonghyun almost called his mom, that he probably would get lost trying to get home without Jonghyun there, blah blah blah. His hand on Taemin’s back says all those things for him, warm and firm and there.

Their hallway is the same as Taemin left it, quiet except for their room. The beat thuds louder than their footfalls, and as Jinki cracks open the door, music floods through, along with a voice. Minho’s again, except this time he’s singing.

Over Jinki’s shoulder, Taemin can see him standing in the center of the room, belting out the lyrics with the microphone cradled in both hands, his voice echoing off the walls. As the door swings the rest of the way open he turns to see them, faltering while the song goes on without him. Then Jonghyun’s hand on his back is pushing Taemin inside, before it slips up to his shoulder, steering him towards the front of the room next to Minho instead of letting him melt into the couch again. Jonghyun half-shouts over the music, right in Taemin’s ear, “If there’s a rap I’m calling it,” and then to Taemin, “Do you want the other mic?”

Before Taemin can grab the nearest tambourine and save himself, Kibum hunts it down and presses it into Taemin’s hands. He’s just lucky Minho sings as loud as he raps, and the music is so loud it fills his ears, and Jinki’s tambourine is crashing and Jonghyun and Kibum are shouting along with the chorus and it sounds like the whole building will come down any second. If Taemin keeps his voice low, no one should be able to hear, right? It’s enough that Taemin can.

Which means it’s okay if it wobbles and thins out and cracks, if Taemin’s pitch is all wrong and there’s not enough air in his lungs to hold out notes the way Minho is doing. It’s okay if he forgets to listen for that stuff halfway through, it’s okay if he stops reading the lyrics because he’s heard this song ten thousand times before and he knows most of them, if it gets harder to sing the harder he smiles, if he loses his voice to laughter when Jonghyun gets up on the table to spit out his verses. It’s okay if that messes Jonghyun up, makes him laugh too, so hard he almost cries, and it’ll even be okay if he tries to get Taemin back later when Taemin is squashed between him and Kibum on his floor at home, trying to sleep.

“You pick the next song, Taemin-ah,” Kibum says. “You’re the only one who hasn’t.”

Taemin should pick something fast and loud and easy to sing, a song that will let him hide, a song that doesn’t mean anything to him.

_The way I talk isn’t the problem, though. It’s my personality._

_That’s not something the company can teach you, Taemin-ah. You have to push yourself._

Taemin chooses G.O.D.’s “Road.”


	8. Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many of you saw the A/N I stuck on last chapter, but I had to stop writing fic for a while to focus on my final papers, which is why it took me so long to update. I'm really sorry for the delay, and hopefully I will be able to post more regularly over the summer! Especially since I don't have much else to do haha.
> 
> I hope you guys are all okay. <3

As soon as he sees the blue Mercedes pull up to the curb outside the training center, Taemin’s stomach sinks to his toes. He keeps walking while the new kid gets out of the car, keeps his head down, bracing himself for the inevitable. Even if he gets inside it won’t make a difference, when they’re headed to the exact same room.

“Taemin-ah! Taemin-ah.”

Jongin.

He squeezes in the door after Taemin and takes off down the hallway with him. He’s tall so his legs are longer than Taemin. They could carry him far, far ahead, but instead he sticks to Taemin’s side all the way down the hall.

“You’re early,” Jongin says.

Maybe Taemin should start coming later. “So are you.”

“I wanted to practice one more time before lessons.” When Taemin glances at him Jongin shoots him a smile. Taemin should probably be trying to return it. “You too?”

“Mm.”

“Did you take the train?” Jongin asks.

And the bus. And he ran the rest of the way because they were both late. Jongin doesn’t need to know any of that, though. His mom drives him every day. “Mm.”

The stairs are right there, thank God. Taemin just has to last two flights and one more hallway until they reach the practice room, and then Jongin will forget he exists, and Taemin can work on forgetting he exists too. He almost did it yesterday, but every time he fucks up while Jongin gets it perfect is another reminder. _See how Jonginnie did it? How clean it was. Now try again._

“Your school must be close by,” Jongin tries again as they climb up, up, up. Before Taemin can figure out the shortest way to tell Jongin it’s not at all, ask him if he looks like he’s from Gangnam, he figures it out on his own. “I guess traffic is slower than the subway a lot of time.”

“I guess.”

Is he saying he has less far to go, that his school is around here? Or close by. Figures. Taemin’s first time coming anywhere near Gangnam was when he came for his audition, and when he started training and lied and told them all he liked steak. Jongin probably eats it all the time, he’s probably had hanwoo before. That’s probably why he grew taller than Taemin even though he’s a year younger, and maybe it’s why he calls Taemin by his name instead of hyung.

Maybe not. The other 94 liners that joined this year do it all the time, too. Luckily none of them are here yet, but neither are Jonghyun and Jinki and Kibum, so Taemin has no excuse when he goes and does his stretches on the opposite end of the room. It’s no good, anyway, when Jongin is still stuck in the corner of his eye. When he raises his eyes to meet Taemin’s in the mirror, Taemin tears his gaze away, leaning into it when his muscles burn. He used to think he was flexible, but it’s like Jongin has no bones.

He wishes Jongin had no voice. “You want to just go through it together?” 

Before he can stop himself Taemin is lying, “You can start without me. I have to go to the bathroom,” and then there’s nothing for it but to get up and leave the room, right after squeezed onto the bus and train and fought through the crowded sidewalk to get here. He forced himself out of bed this morning thinking of this moment, too, and sat through eight hours of school today going through the choreography in his head. Once the practice room door swings shut behind him, all that is gone, and he has nowhere to go. Should he practice his dance steps up and down the hall until one of the hyungs shows up? Maybe just go sit on the toilet for a while? How long is long enough to look normal? And then when he goes back he’ll have no one to blame but himself when he makes mistakes. Ssaem never used to notice half the time and neither did the hyungs, but next to Jongin, anyone could see every tiny thing he gets wrong, and they all add up, too.

Whatever. He can make up the time he’s wasting now later, after Jongin has finally gone home and the practice room is his again.

Jonghyun only gives him until ten thirty tonight, ten whole minutes after Jongin left. Taemin should be pushing to stay later, practice all night, but all it takes is Jonghyun’s hand on the small of his back, and the fight dies inside Taemin. He lets Jonghyun lead him out to the bus stop, listens to him bitch about the heat and pretends to understand when he talks about what he’s learning at music school. Jonghyun doesn’t run out of things to say until they’re already halfway through their giant bowls of naengmyun. Then he finally catches Taemin’s eye.

“You’re quiet today,” he says.

“You’re not.”

Jonghyun laughs and reaches over to pinch Taemin’s cheek, even though it’s bulging with food. “I’m running out of things to say, Taemin-ah. Help me out.”

Taemin can’t say no to him, he’s never learned how, so instead he chews off the noodles in his mouth and gets out, “I have nothing to say, either.” When he swallows, it’s harder than it should be, probably because his stupid throat is tightening on him all the sudden. “Just shitty stuff.”

Jonghyun nods, then hesitates, almost like he can’t figure out the right way to say this. Taemin should just tell him there isn’t one. He read the word in Jonghyun’s face long before he finally asks. “School?”

He could have spent that time figuring out how to reply, but right away, “I don’t want to talk about it,” comes out of his mouth. Jonghyun gets that look on his face, the one that says, _It helps to talk sometimes, Taeminnie,_ and Taemin would say anything to get it off. “Really, hyung. It’s not even that.”

Jonghyun doesn’t look away, so Taemin can’t either. “It is, but it’s other things too, you mean.” It’s really not, not right now, but before Taemin can figure out how to make him believe it, Jonghyun goes on, “Let’s just talk about something else. What else is there?”

“How’s your mom?”

It’s been a month since the last time Taemin saw her. Maybe he should have told Jonghyun he wanted tteokbokki tonight.

“She and noona keep fighting over the TV. Noona was obsessed with that one melodrama with Eric in it, but thankfully that’s over. She’s a Shinhwa fan,” Jonghyun says. “What about yours?”

“You see her every night, hyung.”

Jonghyun smiles like he can’t help it. “I meant, what’s she watching?”

Oh. That’s a way harder question than it should be these days. All winter, all she could talk about was Dalja’s Spring. During Taemin’s spring, she watched some doctor drama for Kim Myungmin and ended up falling in love with Lee Sungyun, and for weeks he came home to her crying over Gong Hyojin and her sick child, trying to sneak past her and put a door between them before she could get all weird and clingy. She can’t stop talking about Park Yeonseon’s new drama even though it’s months away, either, and it’s got her looking for Alone in Love on DVD, so she can re-watch and talk about that non-stop instead. Right now, though…

“Nothing. Taewoo keeps hogging the TV. He’s watching some sageuk.”

Jonghyun pulls a face. “Jumong?”

“No, about King Jeongjo. He says it’s not boring, it’s like a murder mystery or something.”

“I think I’ve heard of that one,” Jonghyun says. “Someone at school mentioned something like that. She said it’s bloody.”

Taemin isn’t going to sit through a whole hour of a bunch of old men in robes droning on about reform to wait for someone to die. At least it’s only eight episodes. Although, “He started some secret agent drama, too. Something about dogs and wolves? My mom is going to kill him to get the remote back pretty soon.”

Jonghyun’s smile fades as it forms, this weird expression that has Taemin’s ribs squeezing in on his heart. “What about you?”

“I just do my homework,” Taemin says, stabbing his egg with his chopsticks and biting off half of it, stuffing his mouth so full he’ll choke if Jonghyun makes him talk again.

Jonghyun just smiles again, this small, stupid smile he has to force, stirring his noodles around in his bowl. “I thought Jinki hyung’s been doing it for you~”

“He just checks it,” Taemin snaps, spraying egg yolk. Instead of wrinkling his nose Jonghyun’s smile widens, like he thinks it’s funny or something. It’s not. “I do my fucking work.”

That’s all Taemin ever does, and it’s never good enough. He never is. He had no reason to be mean to Jongin all day and he has even less of one to be taking it out on Jonghyun, and. Jonghyun reaches for him again, this time to pet his hair. “If you don’t want hyung to mess with you, you should stop being so cute.”

Someone should tell him he’s making it worse. Not Taemin, Taemin has to say, “Sorry, hyung. I’m just really stressed out.” Jonghyun’s face goes a little weird. “What?”

“Nothing.” It’s not, though. It never is with Jonghyun. Sure enough, Jonghyun sits back, little plastic chair creaking under his weight, eyes lingering on Taemin’s face. Taemin can still feel them when he leans over his bowl, and he can’t chew loud enough to not hear the rest of it. “Just…I was wondering when that word stopped sounding weird coming out of your mouth. I kind of wish it still did.”

“I’m almost as old as you were when you started,” Taemin can’t stop himself from pointing out. He’s taller than Jonghyun now, too.

“You already work harder than a lot of adults.” Not hard enough, though, or else Jongin wouldn’t be as good as him after a week. Maybe Jonghyun reads that in his face but he acts like he doesn’t. “You won’t get another childhood later.”

“I wouldn’t get to debut later, either. And I’m not a child, I just said.”

“It doesn’t have to be either/or, Taeminnie, that’s all I meant,” Jonghyun says, voice as gentle as Taemin’s was sharp. He hesitates. Whatever it is, Taemin doesn’t want to hear it, he doesn’t care if Jonghyun thinks he needs to. “Even if school is shitty, there are a lot of kids at the training center now, it’s not just hyungs anymore. You probably look really cool to them, you’ve been training for so long.”

_How do I look to you? Like a baby?_

And anyway, Jonghyun is wrong about him, like he always is whenever it’s about something good. Taemin looks like a pushover. One of them thought he looked like a girl and asked why he was practicing with them. And to Jongin…

“I go there to practice,” Taemin says through a mouthful of noodles. They taste like nothing. “I don’t have time to hang out or anything, you know that.”

Instead of leaving it, Jonghyun says, “What about Jongin, then?”

“What about him?”

To Jongin, he looks like nothing. Otherwise Jongin wouldn’t try to catch his eye in the mirror while they dance, and he’d find a different practice room after lessons instead of following Taemin around. It wouldn’t be so easy for him to talk to Taemin.

Jonghyun narrows his eyes at Taemin like he’s being dumb on purpose. “It seemed like maybe you two were getting close.”

“We’re not.”

“Then get closer,” Jonghyun presses him, instead of shutting up. “You can practice together, you two are perfect for each other. As soon as I saw him he reminded me of you.”

Taemin’s temper flashes so bright it blinds him, and next thing he knows it’s too late to bite back, “Why would you think that? I don’t even like him.”

His own voice echoes in his ears, loud and angry, but the ahjumma calls the next order and the people at the next table keep eating like nothing happened, and Jonghyun is taking it like a joke. “That’s what it looks like when you don’t like someone? I was wondering if I’d be able to tell the difference~”

Jonghyun leans forward, pushing his own bowl aside, trying to catch Taemin’s eye. He looks so dumb Taemin gives up and raises his head and lets him see, slaps his chopsticks down on the table, hands curling into fists under the table. He breathes deep, then again, again again again, until he can say normally, “I don’t hate him, either, hyung, it just came out like that. I don’t get why you had to bring him up.”

“Is it because you’re similar?” Jonghyun reads Taemin’s expression in a heartbeat. “Too similar? Taemin-ah…”

“Just eat, hyung. Your noodles will get mushy.”

“Taemin-ah—”

“I told you I only have shitty things to say, I don’t know why you’re trying to make me say them. Next time you can just eat with him instead, he has all of my good points and none of my bad ones.”

How did that come out of his mouth? Taemin can die anytime now. Shrivel up or melt into the pavement or something. The sun is long gone, though, and the moon is shining down on them both, same as every other night Jonghyun has taken him here and bought him food and tried to get Taemin to tell him things so that he’d have someone to listen to him. And all Taemin can do is take everything out on him.

“You think I don’t have thoughts like that too?” is all Jonghyun says. “You don’t know how many times I thanked god that Taeyeon wasn't a guy, when I don’t even believe in him. And I’m still jealous she's debuting, even if it's not enough to wish I were a girl.” It takes everything inside Taemin just to raise his eyes to Jonghyun’s face again, but Jonghyun is looking at him the same as before. “But at the same time, Taemin-ah…he’s just like you. He’s going through all the same things, for the same reasons as you. Don’t you think he’d understand you better than anyone?”

Not better than Jonghyun. And Taemin doesn’t want understanding. Not from Jongin or from anyone. All he wants is to debut. So bad that just thinking about it makes his heart hurt, so bad he can barely breath sometimes, so bad it feels like his life won’t mean anything if he doesn’t make it.

Jonghyun tries one last smile on him, the dumbest one he’s got. The one that crinkles up his eyes and always ends up on Taemin’s face too, no matter how hard he fights it. “Try talking to him. Mm? Mm? Try.”

“He talks to me all the time already,” Taemin says, before his words stick in his chest. It both hurts and doesn’t at the same time, forcing them out. “It’s hard enough for me to talk to you.”

“That’s why, Taeminnie.” Jonghyun pulls his bowl back in front of him and picks up his chopsticks again. “It can’t be fun hanging around with hyungs all the time. You don’t have to pretend with me, I’ll still buy you food~”

Would hanging around with a dongsaeng be any better? It’d be worse, especially if it’s Taemin. He doesn’t know anything but training and he never even does what he’s told, and no matter how many times Jonghyun tells him not to, he still says stuff like, “I don’t get why you care so much.”

Jonghyun pauses in the middle of stirring his noodles, fixing Taemin with another look. “You don’t?”

_I mean I don’t get why you like me. What there is to like. I know you’re not pretending to, hyung. I’m not that dumb._

Instead of any of that, Taemin says, “I’ll try.”

For a while, Taemin thinks that’s it. His naengmyun tastes like naengmyun again, and it doesn’t turn to rock in his stomach. As soon as he finishes the last of his noodles, Jonghyun gives him his egg, and by the time he’s drunk the dregs of his broth, Jonghyun has slowed down to picking at his food.

“About school,” Jonghyun begins again, before his voice sticks in his throat and he lowers his eyes to his bowl. “Sorry hyung can’t do anything for you.”

He does everything. Taemin should be the one who’s sorry. He’s the one who can’t do anything on his own.

“How was your day, Taemin-ah?” Mom calls as Taemin kicks off his shoes. She always catches him before he can escape to his room.

She’s ready with the same smile she wears every night, too, bright and happy and so real Taemin hates himself for saying, “Fine,” and brushing past her. He keeps walking until he can put his door between himself and the rest of the world, leaving her to figure out if that was a lie or not. Once he’s thrown himself on his bed he can go back to hating himself some more, until he could die from it. Instead he squeezes his eyes shut tight and waits for everything to go away.

It doesn’t. Mom knocks for once before she opens his door, but she doesn’t wait for him to tell her it’s okay to come in, and she goes right back to asking questions he doesn’t feel like answering. “You’re not hungry?”

“I ate with Jonghyunnie hyung,” Taemin says into his pillow.

“Something yummy?”

“Mm.” That’s not enough to get her to leave him alone, though. “Naengmyun. Hyung says it’s too hot for anything else.”

She laughs. “Next time come straight home. Mm? I know what he likes but I’ve never even cooked for him.”

The next time they get out early enough to make it here in time for dinner, sure, which would only be the day one of them gets kicked out. Jonghyun even feels bad when he stays the night and Mom makes tteokbokki, and Mom would probably feel bad just offering him cold banchan and leftovers from the meal she made for Dad and Taewoo. There’s no point saying any of that out loud, though, so Taemin gets it over with and rolls out into the open instead. Mom is smiling down at him.

“You aren’t going to ask about me?” she prods him. “Ask me how my day went.”

“Did something good happen?”

She beams. “I had coffee with the other moms.”

Taemin’s stomach opens up. “From my class?”

“From the training program, Taemin-ah,” Mom says, shaking her head.

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

Oh. Taemin doesn’t have to worry about her asking them to talk to their kids about leaving Taemin alone or acting like they’re his friends with him somehow, which means he won’t have to hear about it when he goes to school tomorrow. _You really went crying to your mom? I thought at least you were above that. You probably think you’re above us all, though. You really think idols are something special? Just watch, he won’t even debut._

Taemin fights the urge to curl up again, keeping his eyes on Mom’s face. Letting her look at his. “I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say.”

She shakes her head at him again, sinking down next to him on his bed. “Aigoo. You’re worse than your father. He even forgot why I was borrowing the car, he was so surprised to see me in makeup. He thought I’d dressed up to have lunch with him or something.” Dad was probably sorry she had to take the train to his work instead of taking a taxi to wherever they met up. If she didn’t wear her sneakers and then change, he probably felt sorry that she had to walk the rest of the way in heels, too. Taemin feels sorry she didn’t just show up looking like herself, and that she thinks he cares what the other moms think of her. Before he can tell her that, Mom goes on, “That reminds me, Jongin’s mom says she doesn’t mind taking you home. I told her how late you like to stay and she said Jongin is the same, so don’t think Mom is trying to control you or something~. I gave up on that a long time ago.”

Why Jongin’s mom of all people? Why him _again?_ Taemin’s never even said anything about him to Mom, there’s no way she even knew he existed before today. He can’t just say that, though. “What about Jonghyun hyung?”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind taking him, too, if I asked her. You said he lives close by.”

And Jonghyun still hasn’t let Taemin come home with him, even after Taemin met his mom, even after Taemin has seen everything else. He’d probably rather die than let someone drive up to his house in a big foreign car.

“I’m fine taking the bus,” Taemin says. “A lot of times we eat together, anyway.”

“That reminds me.”

Before he can stop himself Taemin’s interrupting her. “You keep saying that.”

“Is that your way of telling Mom to stop talking~?” Mom scrunches her nose up at him, probably trying to make him laugh. “Jonghyunnie’s mom couldn’t make it.”

“I told you, she works,” Taemin begins.

“Which is why I wanted to set up a different time to meet with her,” Mom replies. “Give me their phone number.”

What?

Taemin’s insides should probably be squirming, because what if she realizes he was lying all those times he told her he was staying over at Jonghyun’s house instead of the training center, he should be coming up with more lies or explanations or ways to change the subject. But it just hurts. Even more when he admits, “I don’t have it.”

More when she groans, “Taemin-ah~,” like he’s being difficult, not telling her the truth. “I’m not going to embarrass you. We won’t even talk about you.”

“Then what did you talk about today?”

“Aigooooo.” Mom reaches over and pinches both Taemin’s cheeks, but it takes her five seconds to soften. “Jongin’s mom said more about you than me. Jongin must talk about you a lot.” That again. Mom’s eyes linger on Taemin’s face, watching him a little too closely, and whatever she sees there has her reaching out again, this time to smooth her hand over his hair. “She thanked me afterwards, you know. She said she was scared Jongin would be too shy to make friends.”

Taemin doesn’t know how to tell her he’s done nothing for her to be proud of, that Jongin already has more than him after a few weeks and Taemin isn’t one of them, not with her looking at him like that. He doesn’t know how to tell her, _I have no friends. Even Jonghyun hyung doesn’t count. You would’ve had to have me three years earlier. I’d have his number, and he wouldn’t have to do everything all the time._ He doesn’t know how to say, _I know you just want me to be happy, so why does it make me feel worse? Stop worrying about me. I’m fine._

He doesn’t know how to make himself believe that, either.

Taemin has to drag himself out of bed again on Saturday, but the shower wakes him up, water so cold it’s like ice down to his bones, and by the time he’s crept past his parents’ room and stepped out into the half-light, it’s like he never slept. The walk to the bus stop is the same as it was last night, stores shuttered, houses dark, street empty, except it’s downhill, so it’s that much easier. The bus is late and the train is later, but he probably would’ve gotten there too early otherwise. As it is, he doesn’t have to wait for someone to unlock the doors.

Jongin probably did.

Taemin swallows back the bitter taste in his mouth at the sight of him, doing his stretches on the floor. Whatever, who cares, he can just take the next practice room over. Before Taemin can back out, though, Jongin catches his eye.

“You’re here, too?” he says, like Taemin hasn’t been coming in on Saturday mornings since before Jongin even decided to audition. “If we can’t figure out the sound system I have the song on my MP3 player.”

Taemin’s stomach balls up, but his feet carry him across the room. His voice doesn’t listen to him, either, asking without his permission, “Is Jonghyun hyung in the vocal room, do you know?”

Jongin shakes his head. “It’s just you and me and a couple of the girls so far.”

If Jonghyun were going to show up he’d already be here. He probably has a date or something, since they’re on again. Taemin can’t stop his heart from sinking with him as he lowers himself onto the floor next to Jongin, but he doesn’t need to try anyway. His body will start making sense again as soon as he begins dancing. He just has to hold out until then, avoiding Jongin’s eyes and leaning into the burn as he stretches his legs. Jongin doesn’t have anything else to say to him, at least, just climbs to his feet and wanders over to fiddle with the CD player. The intro blares on so loud and sudden Taemin almost jumps out of his skin, but he has enough time to scramble to his feet and take his place in front of the mirror before the beat kicks in. He’s just barely started when Jongin comes up next to him and everything inside him breaks right back down, leaving his body to go on without him. He has all afternoon to figure which one he hates more, Jongin’s reflection next to his, that stupid look he gets on his face when he’s concentrating, or Jongin himself, stuck in the corner of Taemin’s eye, each movement so smooth and sharp. At least Jonghyun fucks up sometimes, at least he remembers when they need to eat, at least he lets Taemin _breathe._ Lunchtime comes and goes and so do the other kids, the sun sets, and Jongin just keeps going on and on and on while Taemin’s limbs grow heavy and his lungs shrink and his shirt is plastered to his back, until it’s all Taemin can do to keep up with him. On his way out, Ssaem pokes his head in the door to remind them to go home and ask them if they need a ride, and for the first time in his life Taemin is this close to saying yes. But he doesn’t need anyone to get him home, even Jonghyun knows that by now, or else he’d be here instead of making out with his girlfriend or whatever else you do on dates. And Taemin would rather die than leave this room first.

He lasts another hour, another twenty times through the song, another million heartbeats, until finally he finds the breath to say, “Shouldn’t your mom be here by now?”

The clock could tell Jongin that it’s the first thing they’ve said to each other in hours, but he turns to look at Taemin instead.

“Your mom told my mom that you take the bus, so I guess she’s decided it’s safe,” Jongin says. “I told her it was a million times but she never trusted me.”

“But you still have to go home.”

Jongin hesitates. The song goes on without them. It’ll be echoing around in Taemin’s head all night. “What about you?”

Taemin has to force himself to turn back to his reflection in the mirror. If this is what he looks like now, how much worse will he be tomorrow morning? Whatever. It’s not like he has school, he’ll have time to go home and shower before church. “I’ll probably just stay here.”

The dying notes of the song fade in the air as Taemin makes it over to the sound system. He gets the power button before it can start up again. When he turns again Jongin is right where he left him, feet rooted to the floor.

“They let you do that?” he says.

Is this really the first he’s heard of it? 

“It’s fine as long as you don’t get caught,” Taemin informs him. “Jonghyunnie hyung and I do it all the time.”

All the time meaning less than ten, but Jongin doesn’t need to know that.

Jongin nods. “I guess it’s not scary with hyung there.”

“Why would it be scary without him?”

Jongin doesn’t need to know that Taemin’s never spent the night here without Jonghyun being one breath away, either, or that Jonghyun lets him use his arm as a pillow and never falls asleep first. Or that the thought of trying to sleeping here alone has Taemin’s insides turning to cement.

Good thing Jongin sticks to easy questions. “What do you tell your mom?”

“That I stayed at hyung’s house.”

Jongin nods, like that makes sense. “I’ll just tell her I was at yours.”

What?

Whatever. Taemin doesn’t care. It’s not his problem, even if he told Jonghyun he’d try. _Jongin_ isn’t. Not until ten thirty ticks down, at least, and Taemin flicks the light off and the two of them crowd out of the practice room door, and Jongin doesn’t split off for the staircase. He follows Taemin down the hall instead. Taemin doesn’t know what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, but there’s no time to ask, not when the staff are already making their final round and catching stragglers, footsteps clattering down the hall towards them. Shit. The vocal room Jonghyun hid him in the first time is around another corner, but there’s the bathroom right there. When he shoulders through the door Jongin catches it before it can slam, stepping inside after Taemin and holding it until it snicks shut. He gets the light before Taemin can think of it too, plunging them into darkness. Just to be safe, Taemin feels his way to the nearest stall and clambers up onto the toilet seat. Jongin is tall enough that Taemin can see the top of his head sticking out when he does the same in the next stall over, one thing that’s never been a problem for Taemin or Jonghyun. He looks so dumb, probably because this is so dumb. Taemin’s heart is going a million miles an hour for no reason, they’ll never check in here, they never do, and there’s something like laughter bubbling up in his chest. Taemin fights to swallow it, to get this crazy smile off his face. By the time it’s safe to talk again he’s almost managed it. He avoids Jongin’s eyes and makes his way down the hall, back towards the practice room, Jongin trailing behind him like a shadow. When he fumbles for the switch the lights sear spots into his vision, purple and red and green, dancing across Jongin’s perfect face. Taemin blinks them away, wishing he could blink Jongin away too, but it’s too late for that.

There’s no one left to hear even if they pumped the volume up until their heads split from the noise, but Taemin doesn’t say anything when Jongin goes for his MP3 player instead of the stereo, or when he turns the volume down so low it sounds like a broadcast from another planet, tinny and indistinct. As long Taemin can still feel the beat, he doesn’t care. The song is echoing around his head already, anyway. It hasn’t left his body either. His muscles burn and his limbs fight him with every movement he makes, but the choreography is like instinct, until finally, for first time since this day began, he’s okay with what he sees of himself in the mirror. Even next to Jongin.

And maybe he’s okay with Jongin existing, too, even when Jongin catches his eye and says, “Let’s stop, Taemin-ah.” His hand lands on Taemin’s shoulder, as light as Taemin’s body is heavy. “Sleep is important, too.”

Hopefully Jongin will be better at that part than Jonghyun. Taemin doesn’t want him lying awake and watching him sleep. It’s bad enough that he followed Taemin into the vocal room he and Jonghyun always use and lay down right next to him. Taemin can feel his eyes on his face, so he shuts his tighter and rolls over, curling his legs into his chest, hugging himself. The last time he and Jonghyun stayed here there was still snow on the ground, and Jonghyun gave Taemin his jacket for a blanket. Today it was blistering hot outside, but it’s still freezing in here. Jonghyun is probably dying at home without air conditioning. If that’s where he is. If he’s not sleeping with his girlfriend or something, if that’s how that works. Taemin wouldn’t know. And he doesn’t care anyway.

He turns over back over restlessly, only for Jongin to remind him he exists. “Did you learn to dance before you came here?”

“From YouTube and stuff like that,” Taemin says thoughtlessly. His stomach twists as his words hang in the air. “I heard you took ballet.”

Whatever, it’s not like it’s that special. Taemin’s aunt took lessons when she was a kid.

“You’re so good at popping,” Jongin says, out of nowhere. “You look cool when you do it, I just look like I’m trying to look cool. Ssaem says I’m too flowy.”

All Taemin’s ever heard Ssaem say is, _You should all be watching Jonginnie. Jongin-ah, come up here, show the class how to do it. He might be younger than all of you but he’s learning a lot faster. Pretty soon you’ll be the ones asking him for help._

“Why’d you quit and come here?” comes out of Taemin’s mouth. And then his stomach twists again. “Sorry if that sounded bad, you don’t have to answer.”

For one long moment, Jongin just looks at him, long enough that Taemin starts thinking about pretending to fall asleep. 

“My mom didn’t even want me to take ballet at first, she signed me up for Taekwondo and piano and stuff,” he says finally. “When I told them I wanted to do it for real and become a dancer, my dad thought of this place instead. He said pop would give me more opportunities. They fought about it for weeks and tried to hide it from me, they’d stop talking to each other or yell when I was supposed to be asleep, so I just acted like I didn’t know.” Jongin smiles, almost like he wants to laugh. “I guess my dad won finally. He tried to bribe me, he said he’d give me Twilight Princess if I passed my audition.” At the look on Taemin’s face he adds quickly, “That’s a game,” like Taemin wouldn’t know that somehow.

“You have a Wii?” Taemin blurts out.

Jongin’s smile widens. “You play?”

“My friend used to have a GameCube.” _I used to have friends,_ more like. Before Jongin can say anything, Taemin goes on, “My brother lets me use his Super Nintendo sometimes.”

“Whenever I get a new system my mom acts like we’re replacing the old one and gets rid of it, she says there’re too many cords otherwise. I still have all my old SNES games if you want them.”

Taemin’s insides shrivel up, and before he can stop himself, he’s saying, “That’s okay, I don’t have time anymore anyway.” And Taewoo would probably die before he took hand-me-downs from a dongsaeng even younger than Taemin. Anyway, back to the important thing. “You just came here because your dad told you to?”

Jongin shakes his head.

“Because I like dancing. It’s the one thing I’m good at.” Jongin is meeting Taemin’s eyes so easily, making it that much harder for him to turn over again and go back to hating him in peace. It’s already hard enough as it is. “What about you, Taemin-ah?”

_Dancing is the one thing I have, too. I’m scared you’re going to take it away from me._

Taemin closes his eyes again. “If you don’t want to call me hyung, sunbae works too.”

Jongin laughs. He wasn’t supposed to. It’s still in his voice when he tells Taemin, “We were born in the same year, though. My birthday’s in January, before New Year.”

Oh. Taemin didn’t know. Which means all he’s left with is, _why would you even want to be friends with me?_ Even if he doesn’t say it out loud, it sits on his chest, keeping his breathing from deepening, his muscles from relaxing, his dream from starting. At this rate he’ll be stuck staring into the black of his eyelids all night, until sunlight drifts in from the window and burns them red, and the rest of the world comes crowding back in.

“What was that?” Jongin says suddenly. Is he trying to scare Taemin now? Whatever. Taemin’s not dumb, and he wasn’t lying, he’s fine without Jonghyun. He shifts his weight, trying to get comfortable, but then Jongin hits his shoulder and goes on in a strangled whisper, “Seriously, you didn’t hear it?”

Taemin opens his eyes to find Jongin staring holes into his face, pale and wide-eyed.

“Hear what?” Taemin begins in a normal voice, but it’s barely out of his mouth when the sound reaches his ears. Distant and droning, non-stop. An alarm?

Taemin jolts upright, heart thudding in his chest. Jongin sits up too, staring and staring like he doesn’t know what else to do.

“Is it because we’re here?”

“Don’t be stupid,” is like the worst thing Taemin could say, so of course that’s what comes out of his mouth. Before he can explain this has never happened before, remind Jongin that they’ve been here in the dark for hours and hours already, or that it’s coming from too far off—

“Then it’s someone else,” Jongin says.

Taemin is on his feet before he can catch up with himself, but each step he takes towards the door brings him closer to having a heart attack. It’s okay. Taemin is going to live through tonight, they both are, it’s probably another trainee or a janitor or someone. Maybe one of the instructors forgot something and couldn’t leave it until morning. Or something.

Something.

“Where are you going, Taemin-ah?” Jongin’s voice is so small Taemin can barely make it out over the snick of the door handle and the creak of hinges, his own pulse, pounding like crazy. “Taemin-ah, don’t. Taemin-ah.”

Taemin wrenches the door open and slips out into the hallway, socked feet sliding on the tiled floor. There’s no one around, but the alarm so much louder outside the soundproofing, drilling into his head, and with each step he takes towards the stairs, it grows louder and louder and louder. By the time his fingertips meet the railing, his chest twists so tight he can barely breathe, and every molecule in his body wishes he’d stayed curled up in the vocal room with his eyes screwed shut. It’s too late for that, though, and whatever’s down here wouldn’t just go away. Besides, it could be nothing. It probably is.

Taemin might’ve stayed frozen in place until morning if it weren’t for Jongin walking right into him, sending him pitching forward. He grabs Taemin’s wrist before he can fall, and then doesn’t let go when Taemin starts down the stairs, grip too tight, hand a little sweaty. Taemin doesn’t say anything. Even if he could find his voice, he still wouldn’t. Even if Jongin could hear him over the alarm, splitting their eardrums. They’re close. Definitely the first floor. The main entrance, maybe? He can see that far from the foot of the stairs if he leans out far enough, it’s just down the hall. He just has to stick his head out, he’s not going to see someone, and if he does it’ll just be a janitor or one of the hyungs or another person Taemin sees here every day. There’s nothing to steal here and it’s locked up tight with a passcode and everything. He’s okay.

Taemin looks.

He looked he looked he looked. So quick he didn’t see anything but he did it. Just flashing lights. Pulse flying, stomach in free fall, he checks again.

“Is anything there?” Jongin says in his ear, still too scared to look himself.

No one. Nothing. The doors are all closed like normal, no windows broken or anything, and the hallway is empty, silence shattered into a million pieces with the alarm blaring, its lights cutting through the shadows every other heartbeat. Which is every other nanosecond at this rate, but all Taemin can do is wait for his body to go back to normal.

He should probably check all over as long as he started. If he tripped an alarm he wouldn’t wait around for people to find him. But he also wouldn’t break into the training center at night. It’s not like the main SM building, nothing important happens here. The people who come here every day are no ones, and the things they bring here during the day and leave here at night aren’t things that someone could take. Blood, sweat, and tears. Dreams. Fears. Really weird thoughts late, late at night when they should probably be at home sleeping.

And anyway, if he were an alarm, Taemin would go off all the time for no reason. That’s just what they do. It’s not like they can leave, either. The trains and buses have long since stopped running and it’s probably worse out there in the dark than it is in here.

“You should’ve stayed behind,” Taemin says to Jongin, raising his voice over the alarm’s wailing. “You’re the one who said not to be stupid.”

“That was you,” Jongin reminds him.

“Let’s just go back up.”

Taemin’s barely taken a step when Jongin asks him, “Do you need to pee?”

Jongin does, Taemin can tell with just one look, and the bathrooms are right there, in the opposite direction of the entrance. Taemin wouldn’t want to go alone either, so he lies and nods and leads Jongin down the hall. Jongin doesn’t say anything when Taemin goes into the girls’ bathroom by accident, just picks the first stall. Taemin could probably just stand around and wait by the sinks, but it can’t hurt to try, and he’d rather die than get up to go later. He heads for the one at the very end, latching himself in before he turns to the toilet.

And sees a cigarette butt floating in the bowl.

It’s probably old. Right? And even if it’s not, who cares if one of the noonas is here too. Not Taemin. Except everything crawls back up inside his body, and his heart is twanging like a rubber band. Did the smoke set it off, is that it?

“Jongin-ah.”

“What?” Jongin says.

It’d probably be really weird to say, _come over here, look at this,_ though, so Taemin gives up. “Never mind, let’s go.”

Taemin’s legs are still shaky when they finally reach the vocal room again. He doesn’t care how hard the floor is or how cold it is in here, he’s never getting up again. Even if that means he’ll be stuck next to Jongin for the rest of his life, he’s fine with that.

“Why won’t that thing shut up? I thought vocal rooms are supposed to be sound proof,” Jongin groans after five minutes of tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable. He’ll figure out that’s not going to happen eventually, he doesn’t need Taemin to tell him. “It has to eventually, right? I can’t sleep like this.”

“You couldn’t before, either.”

“You really don’t get creeped out staying here?” Jongin asks him.

Tonight was the first time. Instead of admitting that, Taemin says, “I found a cigarette in the toilet back there.”

He opens his eyes to find Jongin furrowing his brow. “I don’t think it’s a fire alarm, or else they’d all go off. Someone probably tried to get in and forgot the passcode, a teacher or someone. It could have been a drunk, too, there’s a noraebang down the street.” Maybe. Taemin’s all out of things to say, but now Jongin’s smiling at him. “Which one of the girls do you think smokes?”

Taemin wouldn’t know. He can’t even guess. “You know more of them than me already. People have probably told you that I’m mute or something.”

As soon as it’s out there Taemin can’t take it back, so he avoids Jongin’s eyes instead, rolling onto his back and gluing his to the ceiling. He barely has to live with that, though, before Jongin’s correcting him, “That you don’t talk. That’s not the same thing at all.”

Why does he have to be so nice to Taemin all the time? It just makes Taemin feel shittier.

“I came here because I wanted to debut,” Taemin tells the ceiling. “I don’t know what you’ve had to give up for this so far, but I’ve given up everything. Training is my whole life now.”

Jongin takes that in and says back, of all things, “What about Jonghyun hyung, is he part of that?”

Since the very beginning. If Taemin had never auditioned, then he would have lived his whole life without ever realizing Jonghyun was living his a mile away, and if Jonghyun hadn’t lent Taemin his clothes that day, maybe some other hyung would have. But then Taemin started going home later and later, until Jonghyun was the only other person still there, and Taemin is pretty sure no one else would put up with walking him home every night and spending all their money buying him food, not even Jinki or Kibum. No one else sees in Taemin what Jonghyun does, either, including Taemin himself, probably because Jonghyun has seen everything, every single day, and he’s gone through all the same things. Taemin doesn’t even know where he’d be without him. How far he’d have gotten.

The only normal way Taemin knows how to explain it is, “He’s like me.”

Did that still sound weird? Taemin forgets and checks Jongin’s expression, but it’s no good, he can’t read it. For the longest time, Jongin just looks at him, so Taemin looks back. His hair is sticking up in back, probably static from the carpet, and he’s laid his head on his arm so that his cheek is smushed. The other half of his face still looks perfect, even this close up.

“I want to be like you, too,” Jongin says.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Just getting that much out is so painful, but somehow the rest is easier. “You’re already as good as me. Better at some things. If you work just as hard as me…”

Jongin smiles into the crook of his arm, stupid, secret. “Then we can debut together.”

That’s not how it works, though.

Is it?

Taemin stares into Jongin’s face, trying to catch him in a lie when he wants to believe him so badly. With all his heart, he does. “You don’t think we’re too similar?”

“Suju has over ten members and there aren’t ten different things for them all to be the best at,” Jongin says. “The new girl group is the same.”

The new boy group might be too in the end. Or not.

Taemin rolls over again, this time onto the side facing away from Jongin. There’s this thing fighting its way onto his face that might look too much like a smile.

“Let’s just sleep,” he says, then hesitates, this weird airless feeling crushing in on him, but Jongin has put himself out there so many times. Taemin can do it just this once, he won’t even get hurt. He has to try. “If we wake up early enough, we can go through the choreo a couple more times before we have to go.”

Yeah, it’s a smile.

_Sorry I forgot to call, Mom. I stayed over at Jonginnie’s house._


	9. Rumors

When they left practice the stars were already out, but it’s still so hot by the river. Taemin never even realized how close it was to the training center until two weeks ago, when Jongin told him to bring his skateboard to practice so they could come here after afterwards and find out how bad at it Taemin had gotten. His scabs from falling over and over that day have healed over, but they finished too late tonight to try at all. Moongyu doesn’t skateboard, anyway. Jongin must be friends with him for other reasons. Taemin still doesn’t know him that well, but it seems like there could be lots of them. When he bought them drinks from the vending machine, he remembered what Taemin likes from last time without even asking, and he’s good at spotting ducks and things. Without him, Taemin and Jongin would have gotten lost wandering off the path, and he knows the best place to lie on the grass and stare up at the stars. The last time Taemin saw them this clearly was in the countryside, far from Seoul.

Moongyu is the first one to say what they’re all thinking, too. “Do you think it’s for real this time?”

Jongin rolls onto his side to peer over at them both. “Junmyeon hyung isn’t the type to start rumors.”

“Did he say who he heard it from, though?”

Jongin shakes his head. “I don’t know, no one? It sounded like he just added some things up.”

That makes sense. Taemin has been adding them up, too. The lady who measures and weighs them has started doing it twice a week, and she keeps yelling at Jinki every time he goes up a pound. Two of the oldest hyungs have already left, and Kibum heard that they referred them to a different agency. The week break ended and school started up again, Taemin’s home room teacher pulled him aside to tell him that someone from the program had been in touch to check up on his behavior. _I told them that you listen well and don’t get into fights, even if you don’t make an effort to get along with your classmates._ And before Taemin could tell her that making an effort would just make everything worse, _What’s this about? Did you get in trouble with them? They asked for your transcript as well._

It’s all happened before, though. They told Taemin at the beginning that they’d kick him out if he started failing school, people don’t always wait to get cut before they leave, and that lady tells Jinki he’s too fat to debut all the time.

“When it’s real they’ll announce it. That’s what they did with SNSD,” Taemin says. He hasn’t seen any of them since they began training in the main building, but they’re debuting this month. “Are you guys hungry?”

Jongin smiles and pokes him in the side. “You always are. You’re lucky you don’t get fat.”

Before Taemin can come up with a retort, Moongyu says, “Let’s get some stuff from the convenience store and take it back to my place.”

That’s another thing he’s good at – cooking. He can make real food, too, but whenever he mixes different snacks together, he always comes up with something that tastes better. If Taemin had to choose one other skill besides dancing, he’d pick singing in a heartbeat, but Moongyu will probably do well whether or not he debuts.

Jongin gives in and sits up, too. “As long as one of you two is buying.”

“Rock, paper, scissors,” Moongyu counters immediately. At Jongin’s look, he says, “What? We’re all the same age.”

“If I’m the same age as Taeminnie, then you’re the same age as Jinho hyung,” Jongin says. He’s this close to cracking into a smile, Taemin can tell, especially when Moongyu makes a face at him. But wait a second.

“Then you should call me Moongyu hyung. Call me hyung and I’ll do it.”

What?

Jongin doesn’t even hesitate. “Hyung.”

“Not just once, your whole life.”

“You were born before New Year too?” Taemin blurts out.

They both turn to look at him.

“You didn’t know?” Jongin narrows his eyes at him, and for one second Taemin’s heart squeezes down, making itself too small to get hurt, but then Jongin breaks into a smile and shakes his head and Taemin is back to normal. “Then again, you wouldn’t.”

There are still so many things Taemin wouldn’t, but there used to be so many more, just a few months ago. He wouldn’t talk to Moongyu, and if Moongyu talked to him, he’d figure out the shortest way to answer, hoping Kibum or Jonghyun would say something first. Most of the time he wouldn’t even look him in the eye. Even after Jongin introduced them again, half the time he still couldn’t. Now, though. He doesn’t get how it ever got so hard for him to say stuff like, “I always thought you were younger than me.”

Moongyu laughs. “I thought the same about you at first, with the way they all baby you.”

Taemin’s face goes hot, totally without his permission.

“I was the maknae for a long time, that’s why.”

Except for Soojung, but he barely saw her before, back when Sooyeon was still around all the time. Now sometimes Jonghyun buys food for both her and Taemin. Whenever he gets triangle kimbap Taemin has to watch how much he eats, in case Jonghyun starts counting as he unwraps them. Which he probably wouldn’t, since he’s always too busy talking to Soojung. She actually talks back, that’s why.

“What’s their excuse now?” Huh? Oh. Moongyu hesitates, then reaches over and ruffles Taemin’s hair. “It’s just because you’re cuter than us.”

“Taeminnie’s mom likes Jonghyun hyung better than his real hyung,” Jongin says, even though no one asked him. “She brags about him like he’s her son-in-law or something.”

Taemin’s stomach flips over and he’s going to burst into flames at this rate. He has to turn this around somehow, change the subject, but then Moongyu asks him, “You don’t have a sister, right? That’s lucky.”

“Hyung has a girlfriend already.” Taemin is already climbing to his feet when his brain catches up. He wipes his palm on his jeans and sticks his hand out. “Give me money and I’ll go.” That comes out so weird, though. Why is he being so weird? “I’ll pay for part, too. Is there anything you want?”

Jongin was the one who made fun of Taemin originally, but right away he demands, “Ramyun.”

“I don’t care, just get a lot,” Moongyu says, digging in his pocket for the remainder of his lunch money. “Be creative, that’s more fun for me.”

Taemin’s feet have carried him all the way back to the path before his ears finally stop tingling. He plucks at his collar, billowing his shirt, cool air rushing up. It’s way too hot out here. Jonghyun thought they were crazy for leaving the air condition behind, but he must have by now, too. Unless he’s just going to sleep in the training center again? He barely ever let Taemin get away with it, but now that they don’t go home together every night, he doesn’t have to worry about Taemin trying to stay with him. Which he doesn’t have to anyway, but Taemin’s stopped trying to tell him that. It was bad enough when Taemin told him the story of the alarm and he said, _Did you tell your mom you were with me? Because you weren’t,_ and then, _You just do whatever you want now. You need to be careful, Taemin-ah. She’s right to worry about you._ It took Jonghyun a whole day to get around to adding, _That one always used to fritz out. The alarm. It would go off during the day back when I first started. It went off when I came in one time._

Jonghyun’s mom worries about him, too. The last time he saw her, she told Taemin to make sure Jonghyun eats, and Jonghyun just laughed and said, _Don’t worry, I can’t forget around him. Taeminnie’s never not hungry._

It’s only gotten worse lately. Even if Taemin never gains any weight from it, the lady from the program still told him to restrict his junk food. She said his skin was bad. He shouldn’t have admitted he was hungry before, and he shouldn’t be pulling open the convenience store door and stepping inside at all, let alone going straight for the potato chip aisle. Or stuffing three bags in his basket. No, two. Moongyu said he wanted variety and Jongin said he wanted ramyun. Taemin heads towards the noodle aisle, grabbing whatever looks good, sausages, shrimp crackers, cheese sticks…what about ice cream? Maybe that’s better than cooking? No, both is good. They could just eat it on the way home, if there’s no one else on the bus the driver probably won’t even care. The freezers should be in the very back, right? Right.

So is Kibum. Sitting with another hyung Taemin doesn’t recognize, one with dyed red hair and earrings, eating from the same cup of dippin dots. They’re sharing the spoon, too, one bite for Kibum, then one bite for him. Whenever Taemin tries to offer Kibum a bite of anything Kibum always acts like he’s being gross, but he must be a lot closer to this guy. Whoever he is. Is he from another company, maybe? Kibum only ever auditioned at SM, but somehow he knows everyone. Maybe Taemin should just leave them alone? Or maybe he should stop lurking before Kibum catches him and says, _Yah, Lee Taemin. Don’t even try and pretend you didn’t see me, that’s embarrassing. Where’s Jonghyunnie hyung? Don’t tell me he let you wander off by yourself._

_Hyung,_ Taemin opens his mouth to say, but it dies in his throat when Kibum misses and smudges ice cream on the hyung’s lips, then leans in and kisses it off.

Which, what?

It only lasts a second. Less than that. It takes him seconds to turn around and walk out of the store, ditching his basket at the entrance when the ahjumma at the cash register yells after him. The air is so thick outside it feels like walking into a wall, or maybe that’s just Taemin.

He saw it, though. They kissed. That was a kiss. He knows what counts and what doesn’t, whatever Taewoo says, and that did. He _saw._

And now there’s Jongin. “You didn’t get anything?”

“What?” Oh. Junk food. Chips, ramyun, ice cream, _Kibum._ He barely has to think of a lie before he’s telling it. “It closed early.”

“What, why?”

“I don’t know, it just was.” That’s no good. Taemin keeps walking in the other direction and they follow him, exchanging looks. _Taeminnie is crazy_ is better than _Kibum hyung is gay?!_ Anything would be. What else is there? He has to think of something, he has to. Oh. “Don’t worry, I still have all the money.”

“Hang onto it,” Moongyu tells him. “There’s another store down the street from me, it’s open all night. That works better, anyway.”

Jongin grabs Taemin’s arm, pulling him back and letting Moongyu get a couple steps ahead. It’s so hard for Taemin to meet his eyes, twice as hard as it always used to be, since Jongin can read his face so easily now.

Or not. Finally he guesses, “You didn’t run into someone from the program or anything?” He bumps his shoulder into Taemin’s. “If they catch you eating junk, you’ll get in trouble. It’s not worth it.”

_What if they caught hyung kissing a boy? Because I did and I don’t know what to do or say or think. Nothing, right? He doesn’t know that I saw, either. Everything is so weird right now, Jongin-ah._

_It’s just…_

“Weird.”

Taemin hears the word from all the way across the room, eyes flicking to Sihyun in the wall of mirrors before he can stop himself. He looks away before Sihyun can catch him, barely missing a step. Even now that the boy group rumors have Sihyun staying later and later after lessons, it’s not to practice as far as Taemin can see, it’s to sit on the floor and talk shit with the other hyungs. That’s all he ever does. It’s not about Jonghyun’s girlfriend this time, at least, and if Taemin stays quiet and minds his own business, maybe it won’t be about him either.

Maybe. Sihyun’s spent the last ten minutes going through who he’d want to debut with or not. All someone has to do is give him a name. _Boring. Bossy. Annoying, he never listens and then he asks dumb questions. Not him, he stinks. Can you imagine being stuck in a van with him farting all day? Him? Weird._

“Jinki hyung,” someone says, throwing Taemin right back out of the music.

“That hyung is too nice to get anywhere in life,” Sihyun says. “I thought they told him to lose weight, anyway.”

_He is,_ Taemin bites back, _and he can sing way better than you so who cares._

Jinki went through the choreography with Taemin once before he booked it for the vocal rooms, since they’ve started filling up so fast. The only people left to defend him are Taemin and Kibum, but Kibum doesn’t miss a beat. He didn’t earlier, either, not when Taemin waited for Kibum to return from the bathroom to go change so he wouldn’t have to come up with normal things to say to him, or when Taemin came back and wedged himself between Jongin and Moongyu on the other side of the practice room. _You're quieter than normal even,_ was all he said later, after lessons finished. _Does Taeminnie want a candy~? I found it in my pocket, I hope it didn’t go through the wash._ When Taemin took it their fingertips brushed and Kibum smiled at him, eyes crinkling up, and it tasted like an excuse not to talk, sticky and too sweet. By the time Jongin finished fiddling with the sound system and the song boomed on and Taemin had to swallow it, it was so small he could barely feel it. He probably deserved to choke on it.

Jongin keeps right on dancing like Sihyun doesn't exist, but Kibum catches Taemin’s eye in the mirror and half-smiles at him. The thing Taemin forces onto his face in return looks even worse than that it feels. Then another hyung tries, “What about Jonghyun hyung?” and it slides right off.

Sihyun laughs. “He’s a scandal waiting to happen, no way.”

Taemin’s legs twist as he turns around, heart thudding in his ears, but Kibum’s hand closes around Taemin’s wrist, and anyway Junmyeon is already there. “What, because he has a girlfriend and you don’t?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

If he says one more thing about Jonghyun…then nothing. Mouth bitter, Taemin twists out of Kibum’s grip, yanking away from him, but somehow that feels ten times shittier. _It’s not you, hyung, I’m the one being weird. I don’t know how to stop and he keeps making it worse and._

“You’d seriously pick a group based on stuff like that?” Junmyeon presses Sihyun. “Not talent or anything.”

The other hyungs laugh and one of them says, “I guess he doesn’t have confidence that he’d get in otherwise.”

“As long as they pick based on visuals I’m not too worried,” Sihyun shoots back. “How many of you got street cast? Just Minho.”

The hyung slouched next to him points towards Taemin and Jongin. Jongin ignores him. Maybe he doesn’t even hear him ask, “What about those two?”

Or see the look on Sihyun’s face. “Are you serious?”

“Are you?” Minho this time. He lasted longer than all the others before taking a breather, sitting against the wall silently while they talked and talked and talked. “They’re the best in dance.”

Sihyun’s eyes flit between Taemin and Jongin in the mirror, before he shrugs and says carelessly, “Still not interested in babysitting.”

Kibum’s face tightens in the mirror, and that’s all the warning Taemin gets before he throws over his shoulder without missing a step, “Good thing SM is making the decision, not you. If you don’t make it, don’t try to get a desk job here. It won’t work out.”

Sihyun’s face shutters. He’s been weird about Kibum ever since the fight. Taemin doesn’t get what Kibum’s ever done to make him hate him, but who cares when Taemin is worse. Kibum has done so much to make Taemin like him, he’s sticking up for him right now, and all Taemin can do is be weird about him too, and.

“No one’s asked me about you yet,” Sihyun says, just loud enough that his voice carries over the music. “I guess you just never came to mind as a possibility.”

What is that supposed to mean?

Taemin’s feet stutter to a stop. Kibum doesn’t miss a step, though, shoes squeaking across the floor, movements sharp enough to cut glass as he laughs, short and ragged. “Nah, it’s just harder to talk behind my back when I can hear everything.”

“Did I say anything bad? I just gave my opinion.” Sihyun nods towards Taemin, freezing him in place. “Ask Taeminnie if I hurt his feelings.”

_Leave hyung alone. Whatever you think you know about him, keep it to yourself._ Taemin’s mouth is dry as dust and now his stomach is churning, acid crawling up his throat. _If you’re not going to practice, fuck off. Do you think you’re going to debut if you just sit there long enough?_

The song thuds to a stop and so does Kibum. Next thing Taemin knows he’s reached out and patted Taemin on the back, hand big and warm and firm. Instead of knocking his voice out of him, it jams it up in his chest.

“Just ignore him, Taemin-ah,” Kibum says as the music starts up again like clockwork. Jongin hesitates, back on planet earth again. “You too, Jongin-ah. He’ll stop bothering you after I leave. Hyung is going now, okay?”

Okay. Taemin’s down to five seconds left to meet his eyes like normal. Except he’s already too late. Kibum squeezes his shoulder and ruffles his hair and turns to go, and then Sihyun opens his big mouth again. 

“Where are you going?” he says, ignoring it when Junmyeon shushes him. “To get changed in the bathroom again?” His eyes narrow as Kibum’s hand closes around the door handle, mouth twisting, voice rising. “Why? No one’s going to look at you. We’re not the ones who would.”

Kibum freezes, then turns back around. There’s this look on his face Taemin can’t read.

“Come on, stop it.” The look on Junmyeon’s face is too easy. It’s exactly like Taemin’s been inside, this endless churning anxiety. “Seriously, Sihyun-ah, you’re not funny.”

He barely gets the words out before Kibum says loudly, “Like I’d look at you? Insecurity isn’t attractive to me, sorry.”

“Don’t you start, Kibum-ah,” Junmyeon begins quickly.

“I didn’t start anything, and I wasn’t talking to you.” Kibum’s eyes are fixed on Sihyun, staring so hard it’s almost like he’s scared to blink. “You know who else was picked for his face? Jonghyun hyung. You should stop sitting on your ass if you want to keep up. It’s not a good look.”

“What about you, you think hard work will get you anywhere? I heard you had to beg them to let you in.” Sihyun sneers. “If you manage to debut, make sure you take advantage and get some work done. From what I heard the company will pay for everything.”

"You sure hear a lot. All I've heard all day is your fucking yacking."

“Shut the fuck up, both of you,” Junmyeon says, but Sihyun ignores him.

“Then again, a surgeon can’t fix what’s wrong with you. You need a psychiatrist.”

Taemin’s stomach turns inside out. He has to say something, do something, get that look off Kibum’s face somehow. _Don’t listen to him, hyung. Hyung—_

“And you need to fix your fucking personality.” Minho’s voice comes crashing down out of nowhere. Taemin forgot he was even there, but when he climbs to his feet and steps between them he towers over everyone. “You can start by shutting your mouth.”

Sihyun gapes up at him, like he’d forgotten him too. Except then he says of all things, _“You’re_ defending him?”

Because Minho is a million times better person and Taemin is shit, that’s why.

“Some things aren’t fair game, hyung. They just aren’t, I don’t care what you believe, and it’s fucking not okay to go there.” Minho crosses his arms over his chest, shoulders tense, hands balled up so tight his knuckles are white. “There’s nothing wrong so there’s nothing to defend.”

For one long moment, the silence is so loud Taemin can’t hear anything else.

Then, in this brittle voice that squeezes Taemin’s heart, “You’re right, there isn’t, so why don’t you just shut up too? Thanks for the fucking reminder that it’s okay for me to fucking exist, you’re only the last fucking person I needed to hear it from.” Kibum glares at them both, eyes darting between them like he can’t decide who he hates more, but then something in his face gives, just a little, and he fumbles for the door, jerking it open. “If I end up in a group with either of you, you don’t have to worry. I’ll take care of it myself and jump off the fucking roof.”

The door slams so hard behind him it echoes.

And echoes and echoes, around and around in Taemin’s head, so loud it takes him forever to realize hours later when Jongin finally turns off the music. He gets it even less than Taemin does, so he’s no help. Jonghyun isn’t, either. He just asks Taemin questions that should be easy, like if he wants to get off at Dongdaemun, what he wants to eat tonight, if he can pass the red pepper flakes, if Taemin minds switching plates with him, since he put in too much. As long as he doesn’t mind that Taemin already took a few bites, Taemin doesn’t care. Otherwise Jonghyun would probably have asked Taemin if he could come up to use the bathroom once they got back to his place. As it is, he runs out of questions when they’re only halfway there. Each step Taemin takes should be easier, since it brings him closer to going to bed and falling asleep and forgetting everything, but somehow each one is harder instead.

“Hyung,” he says finally.

Jonghyun grunts to show he’s listening. He hates climbing this hill enough already, Taemin probably shouldn’t say anything that would make him use words.

“You know how you’re always telling me to talk?”

Jonghyun glances sideways at him. “What is it?”

Taemin falters. “It’s not about me, it’s about someone else. Is it still okay?”

“Do you think hyung is the type to spread rumors or something~?” Jonghyun bumps his shoulder into Taemin’s. “Go ahead. Telling me doesn’t count.”

“It’s Kibum hyung.”

Three little words, and it’s so hard to get them out. The rest is going to be worse. Maybe Taemin should just forget it and make something up?

“He got in a fight again, right?” Jonghyun guesses.

“With Sihyun hyung, but it’s not that. It didn’t get that bad.” Hang on. Taemin glances over at Jonghyun, trying and failing to read his face in the yellow streetlight. “Was he the one he fought with the first time?”

“No, why?”

Jonghyun’s not lying, or Taemin would be able to tell. Why would he, anyway? Taemin stares at his feet, scraping his shoes along the pavement, waiting for the words to come to him. They don’t. “He just said some stuff, is all.”

He makes it one more step before Jonghyun reaches for him, taking him by the shoulders and turning him around to face him. It’s still so weird not to have to look up at him anymore, to stare straight into his face. It’s so much harder to avoid his eyes, too.

“Either tell me or don’t, Taemin-ah. You’re going to make me crazy.”

“I saw him kiss a boy,” comes out of Taemin in a rush. “On the mouth.”

“Ah.”

Jonghyun’s expression barely changes. Did he not get it, did Taemin not say it clearly enough? “They were eating ice cream together in the back of the store, the one by the river, and they kissed. It wasn’t like they were making out or something, but I know what I saw.”

Jonghyun’s shoulders relax subtly, and he releases Taemin, stepping back. “That’s all?”

How is it not a big deal? Taemin is used to Jonghyun making things make more sense, not less. It’s like that one moment has turned Taemin’s life upside down, making everything opposites and shaking things loose that he’d never noticed before, like the way Jonghyun is looking at him now, eyes narrowed, mouth thinning. When Jonghyun reaches for him again, hand closing around his wrist, Taemin follows him as blindly as he’s always done, up, up, up and around the corner, until they reach the convenience store down the street from Taemin’s building. His legs fold when Jonghyun sits him down in one of the blue plastic chairs out front, and he accepts the drink Jonghyun goes in to buy for him, like ice biting into his fingers.

“Did you know already?” Taemin says instead of drinking.

Jonghyun takes the can back and snaps it open for him, pressing it into Taemin’s hand again as he replies, so easily, “That he’s gay?”

“I didn’t.”

“Is he the first gay person you’ve met?” Jonghyun asks, almost gently. “That you know of.”

“Mm.”

Jonghyun scans his face. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

What? “No.”

“Good,” Jonghyun says shortly. He almost smiles at the look on Taemin’s face, and before Taemin knows it Jonghyun’s hand is on him again, big and warm, scrubbing through his hair. “It shouldn’t.”

The can is sweating in his hand. Taemin takes a long sip. Apple juice. The same brand Moongyu got for him yesterday. “I just didn’t know.”

_What if he doesn’t want me to? I wouldn't._

“It’s like I told you before, Taemin-ah. Weird—” The word is barely out there when Jonghyun switches to, “Different doesn’t mean wrong.”

Taemin knows that much already. People have been telling him his whole life that Jesus loves everyone, and if that doesn’t include Kibum, they were all lying to him.

“It doesn’t mean bad, either, it just means different.” Taemin hides behind his drink again, but he could empty the can and the words would still be waiting for him at the bottom of it. He has to get them out somehow, or they’ll just get stuck deeper and deeper inside him. “I don’t know how to act around him now. He doesn’t know I know, I walked out before he could see me. What if I say the wrong thing? I always do.”

Taemin was being serious, but Jonghyun smiles, almost like he can’t help himself. “Everyone else already knows. He probably figured you did too.”

So that's how it is. That explains why all the hyungs got it before Taemin even did. He's always the last to know everything, even when it's about the people he's supposed to know best.

Before he can take it back, Taemin is saying, “Do his parents know too?”

So it’s up to Jonghyun to tell him what he already knows again. “That’s none of our business, Taemin-ah.” Jonghyun hesitates, then steals Taemin’s drink from him to take a sip, lips pressed to the rim. Then another. He can just have the rest of it. He’s the one who paid for it, and if he doesn’t care about secondhand kisses, Taemin doesn’t either. Except his stupid ears are tingling, even while Jonghyun talks about serious stuff like, “A lot of people give him shit for it, but it’s his life. What if it were you, what would you do if you had to hide that you like girls?”

Taemin was too young the last time he liked a girl to remember what it feels like now. Anyway, more importantly, “What about SM?”

Jonghyun catches his eye again.

“What are you worried about? That they won’t let him debut if they know, or that they’ll put him in a group with guys like Sihyun? Idols can’t date anyone, Taeminnie. Even getting caught with a girl is bad. As for Sihyun—”

“That hyung always talks shit,” Taemin cuts in before he can stop himself, and then it’s all coming out. “Not just about Kibum hyung, about you too, and I never say anything. Not even to tell him to shut up. He acted like Kibum hyung was a freak and I just stood there. Only Minho hyung said anything.”

“Minho, really?” Taemin works up to lifting his head again in time to catch Jonghyun’s expression flicker, but then all he says is, “Good for him.”

“Kibum hyung didn’t think so.”

“It’s complicated, Taeminnie. Don’t worry about it.”

Does he mean it’s embarrassing to have people stick up for him? Taemin gets that so much it hurts. Except it’s even more embarrassing to not stick up for people because you suck too much. More still, to sit here staring at his knees with his chest filling up. His house is just up the hill, he just has to get up and start walking, but instead he gets out, “What if he hates me now?”

Jonghyun just laughs at him, but somehow the sound of it clears Taemin’s breathing. “Then maybe he’ll stop trying so hard to steal you from me~. Aigoo.” He pinches Taemin’s cheek. “Don’t hate yourself, either, especially for something someone else said. And don’t waste your time on Sihyun, seriously. He already knows he’s not going to debut, that’s why he’s like that.”

“If SM picks him I’m quitting and going to a different company.”

“Taemin-ah~”

Taemin takes the juice back and hides his smile behind the rim. By the time he remembers he’s not supposed to, his lips have already touched the metal, and he has to go back to Not Caring, fumbling for something to say.

“I probably won’t have to worry about it anyway, at least not this time. I’m too young.”

Instead of laughing, Jonghyun makes yet another face Taemin can’t read, the millionth one tonight. “It’s not like you to give up that easily. They haven’t made the first cut, they haven’t even announced it yet.”

“I’m still going to try my best.” Jonghyun has to know that, though. He knows Taemin. “I just don’t know if it’d be better for me to wait. Besides, Jonginnie and I promised to debut together.”

That doesn’t get that look off Jonghyun’s face, either. Taemin is as bad at him as he was at Kibum today.

“You two are that close already?” Jonghyun says.

“That’s how we became friends,” Taemin tells him. “What about you?”

Jonghyun stands, chair scraping across the pavement, so Taemin does too. The night is so much darker outside the greasy halo of the convenience store’s sign.

“I made my choice when I dropped out, Taeminnie. Whatever it takes, whoever they put me with, I don’t care. I’m debuting.”

The Kibum hyung Taemin knew up until that moment would have said the same thing. But then, Taemin himself has said things about jumping off the roof before, and even if it was only to get back at Taewoo, that’s still a side of him he’s never wanted any of the hyungs to see. And there’s also the side couldn’t talk at all yesterday and just stood there while Sihyun talked shit, and the side that turned and ran when he saw Kibum kiss a boy. He’s done running, though, he’s going back to normal if it kills him. Which is why he probably should just go in and start stretches and smile up at Kibum when he comes in, just like any other day. But he’d just spend all that time checking his face in the mirror, trying so hard to look normal everything would get weirder, so instead he’s sitting on his haunches outside the doors, waiting for Kibum to show up.

Jongin does first, like always. His mom always used to get him here faster than the bus, but he told Taemin that he almost died of awkwardness every time she drove up, trying to say goodbye to her before any of the hyungs saw. Those extra few minutes in the practice room weren’t worth his life. Taemin thinks he gets that finally when Jongin says, “You coming, Taemin-ah?”

“I’m waiting for Kibum hyung.”

Jongin shifts his weight, scratching the back of his head uncertainly. “Because of yesterday? What Sihyun hyung said.”

“Did you already know too?”

Jonghyun said everybody but Taemin did. He must have meant it.

“It was kind of hard not to?” Jongin glances around, then squats down next to Taemin, hugging his knees and sneaking another sidelong look at him. “What Minho hyung said was right.”

“Mm.”

Jongin glances around again to make sure, then adds, “Sihyun hyung is a dick.”

“Jonghyun hyung said not to bother with him.” Taemin bumps his shoulder into Jongin’s, almost losing his balance in the process. Jongin is warm and solid, though. Unmoving. Taemin has to push him again. “Go inside, it’ll be weird otherwise.”

It’s weird enough as it is. Jongin promises to come back and get him if Kibum beat them both there somehow, but there’s no way. In the two years Taemin has known him, he can count on one hand the number of times Kibum got here first. His school is further away, and high school is way more serious than middle school, plus sometimes he stays after to clean when it's not his turn to cover for friends. All Taemin has to do is stay right here and wait and he’ll see him. And when even that gets too hard, he can just hug his knees and bury his face in his arms and worry about breathing, because Kibum won’t go in without saying something like, “Yah, Lee Taemin. What are you even doing out here?”

Taemin looks up on instinct. Kibum looks so tall from down here, blocking out the sun, biting back a smile. He probably thinks Taemin looks really dumb, but that’s normal, right? Normal. The first thing Taemin can come up with that’s safe to say is, “I don’t know.”

It’s also a lie, but who cares. Kibum laughs. “You wouldn’t.” He reaches down to take Taemin by the elbow, hauling him to his feet, telling him, “Come on. That better not be your cigarette butt over there~” 

Taemin’s laugh takes him by surprise. When he remembers to grab his bag off the ground, it’s so much lighter than it was before.

…Too light. He waits for his stomach to sink as he follows Kibum through the doors, but the smile stays on his face, so big his cheeks are going to start to hurt. “I think I forgot my clothes at home.”

Kibum replies, like Taemin isn’t being annoying at all, “If I don’t have any extra clothes, Jonghyun hyung probably will.” 

Probably. “I don’t even think he takes his clothes home to wash anymore, he just brings new ones in all the time.”

Kibum just barely cracks a smile. “That explains a lot.”

Explains what? Taemin can’t stop himself from saying, “Hyung doesn’t smell, if that’s what you mean. I sit next to him on the bus after practice, I would know.”

Kibum’s smile widens, and he shakes his head at Taemin. “I was kidding.”

Oh. Taemin is just being dumb. He keeps saying such dumb things, too, instead of the things he probably should. If he weren’t himself, if he were Jonghyun or Kibum, what would he be saying right now?

“Hyung—”

“You don’t have to say anything, Taemin-ah. That’s more normal for you.” Kibum shoots him half a smile. “You’d think you’d never seen people fight before. It wasn’t even that bad, I could have said a lot worse.” He pauses, mouth twisting-ever-so-slightly. “He could have too, I guess.”

Taemin has to keep looking Kibum in the eye. He has to say something. Otherwise he’ll end up back here again tomorrow, and if Kibum doesn’t hate him for it, he’ll have to hate himself. 

“I don’t care what he thinks, hyung.” It’s the truth, but that’s all Taemin has, and it’s so hard to put out there. “You shouldn’t, either. You’re the one who told me to ignore him, that means you have to, too. He’s just jealous.”

For one second, Kibum gets the weirdest expression on his face, almost like he’s going to laugh or yell or something crazy, and then in the next he’s started walking again, strides so long Taemin has to hurry to catch up before they hit the stairs. He was prepared for Kibum to pinch his cheek or pet his hair or hook his arm around his shoulders and pull him into his side, but maybe that’s all Jonghyun. Maybe Taemin didn’t say the wrong thing.

“My mom keeps asking about you, ever since you stayed over,” Taemin tries again, just to be safe. “Maybe she likes you better than Jonghyunnie hyung.”

“Now you’re lying to me,” Kibum accuses him, but Taemin can hear the smile in his voice, so it’s okay. It’s all okay. “It’s because you don’t talk about me as much, so she has to ask more.”

Taemin’s face goes hot out of nowhere, and, “I don’t talk about him, Jonghyun hyung talks about himself,” comes tumbling out of him.

Kibum just shakes his head at him. “You talk about him to me all the time, though?”

Because he comes up, because they both know him, because Jonghyun is the person who’s always telling Taemin things like, _I didn’t mean weird as a bad thing, Taemin-ah. It’s not, not to me at least_ and _different isn’t wrong_ and _a lot of people give him shit for it, but it’s his life. What if it were you?_

“You can talk to me if you want,” Taemin says, stomach squirming all of the sudden, but there’s no going back, when he’s the one who said it. “He does sometimes. About his girlfriend, I mean. I don’t have anything to say back—”

“And you never listen, either. Aigoo.” That’s what Kibum says, but it doesn’t explain the smile on his face, or why Kibum does pet his hair this time, reaching down as Taemin climbs up the last step. “When you figure out what to say, you can talk to me too.”

_What is that supposed to mean?_ Taemin never gets to ask. As they walk down the hall, the murmur of voices grows louder and louder and louder, until they turn the corner and walk straight into a wall of trainees, girls and boys, some still in their uniforms, some in sweats, the ones on the edge standing on tiptoe or squeezing through the crowd. Taemin doesn’t need to see to know.

He doesn’t need Jongin to grab his shoulder from behind, turn him around, ask him breathlessly, “Where have you been, Taeminnie? I ran all the way back down to get you.”

He doesn’t need to ask, “What is it?” either, but it’s already out of his mouth before he can even think. He shuts it tight, before his insides can follow.

“It’s like you said.” Jongin’s eyes are wide. “About the rumors. The announcement.”

It’s for real. When he finally makes it through the crowd, up to the bulletin board, Taemin still has to read it a million times, the first few for it to make sense, and then rest for his heart stops pounding and there’s room inside him again for the words to sink in.

_We are preparing a new boy group to debut in the first quarter of next year. Prepare yourselves as well. The first round of cuts will take place during next week’s evaluations._


	10. Cuts

Jonghyun told Taemin the other day that he’s started resenting that he has to eat. Taemin isn’t there yet, but sitting here with his back to the wall and his and Jongin’s reflections staring at him in the mirrors across from them, he hates his muscles for breaking down, his lungs for needing more oxygen, his body for needing water. When Jongin passes him the bottle, it takes all his self-control not to chug it until the plastic crinkles in his hand.

“Do you really think it’s going to be hip hop?” Jongin says.

Taemin doesn’t know. It’s October already and they’re down to twenty boys left, and still, none of them do. The first rumor was ballads. Taemin was so sure he was screwed he wasted a whole a week crying himself to sleep from frustration at home in his bed instead of passing out on the practice room floor, but at the end of it, he and Jongin made the cut when hyungs who could sing got cut. Next people said it wasn’t a new boy group at all, just a subunit of Super Junior, until SM debuted Henry in September, one of the Chinese hyungs who’d been training as a Suju member. Now…hip hop.

“We should’ve learned to rap like Minho hyung,” Taemin says, trying and failing not to think of the time Minho told him as much and Taemin blew him off. He slides down the wall until his chin is propped up on his chest, then scoots a little further, until his head hits the hard floor and the lights blind him. Seeing spots beats seeing that expression on his own face. “What do you think Moongyu’s doing right now?”

He got eliminated right at the beginning. He said it was better that way, that the reality check was a lot less painful than deflating his head would have been down the road. He said it like he was joking, but not making it is not making it. If it were Taemin, he’d rather go to the very end, get cut when he’s sweated all the water out of his body and there’s none left to form tears. Then maybe it’d be easier to live with himself.

“Homework, probably,” Jongin guesses, because Taemin asked him a question. When Taemin glances at him he can see up his nostrils, but he can’t miss the look on his face. “I have to go home soon, too.”

Taemin struggles back upright. “Already? It’s not even dinner time yet.”

_And evals are tomorrow._

“I have a test tomorrow, too,” Jongin replies, like he’s read his mind. “If I don’t keep my grades up my mom will send me back to hagwon.”

“That’s the same thing as making you quit training.” Like Jongin needs Taemin to tell him that. He doesn’t even look annoyed, though, so Taemin skips hating himself and tries to be helpful. “Tell her you signed a contract, you’ll be in debt if you break it, or SM will sue you, or something.”

Jongin just frowns. “Is that true? The debt part, I mean.”

“I don’t think so,” Taemin says. “They’re letting a lot of people go.”

It’s the same as it was when SNSD got picked. Some have gone to other agencies, some have given up, and some are still here. Back when Sihyun got eliminated, Taemin was in knots to see where he’d fall, but the days and then weeks that passed with no sign of him were like one big deep breath. If Kibum feels the same way, he’s never said, but Jonghyun told him on the bus ride home that night, _His head is way too big to try another company, don’t worry about running into him after you debut~. He liked being at SM better than he liked music._

“Whatever. I can’t piss her off right now,” Jongin is saying back on planet earth. “My sister took her boyfriend home last week and she hates him.”

“Do you?” Taemin asks, not sure what else to say about that stuff. Jongin is the same as him, though. He just shrugs. “Taewoo says he got a girlfriend.”

Jongin laughs, face lighting up for the first time since they gave it up. “You don’t believe him?”

“When I meet her I will. The way he talks, all they do is study together. How is that dating?”

“Yeah, ‘study,’” Jongin says with half-hearted innuendo.

He’s met Taewoo, though, he should know that, “He’s not like Jonghyun hyung.” Or like any other hyung who knows how to talk to girls. Taemin’s ears heat up, but if they’re turning red, Jongin doesn’t notice, too busy spinning the empty water bottle between his fingers and killing the minutes he has left. “Don’t worry about it, Jongin-ah. It’s just one night. Sometimes practicing too much is bad, anyway. You can fall into bad habits, or get too in your head. Taking a break is like a reset.”

Taemin hesitates, then reaches over to pat Jongin’s back. That only gets Jongin to shoot him a look.

“Studying isn’t taking a break,” he says. Then he smiles again. It looks like hard work, even after the day they’ve had. “Let’s hang out with Moongyu again after evals. He’s probably bored without us.”

After evals…

It’s Taemin’s turn to stare down at his hands, but even then, it’s so hard to put it out there. “What if one of us gets cut?”

“Are you confident?” Jongin says. When Taemin shakes his head wordlessly, it’s the shortest version of the truth he has, but immediately Jongin’s telling him, “You should be, more than me at least. Ssaem is never going to let me forget I started with ballet.”

It’s not dance that bothers Taemin, it’s not even rapping. It’s his voice. In all this time he’s been auditing vocal lessons, he hasn’t learned anything he can use, because he’s useless. When he thinks about Moongyu, or some of the hyungs that have gotten cut, it’s like his chest fills up. But when he thinks about debuting…it feels like stepping out into nothing. What if they pick him somehow? It’d be for the person he is now, the one single thing in his life he can do, not the person he could make himself into or the things he could learn, if he had more time. What kind of singer can’t even sing?

He doesn’t know how much of that Jongin can read in his face, or if the same exact things are going through Jongin’s head, whenever he stays still long enough to let it all catch up. Maybe they’ll follow Jongin all the way home, sit next to him on the bus and lurk in his shadow on the sidewalk and be there as soon as he closes his eyes. Taemin is lucky he has Jonghyun to talk to him through all that, right up until that last one. Not listening to him takes more energy than listening at this point.

“Are you going to stay here and wait for hyung?” Jongin guesses, and as soon as Taemin nods again, “What does he think?”

About hip hop? He likes it. When the rumors first started, he gave Taemin a million different recommendations to look up on YouTube, and that time they all went to the noraebang, he ended up rapping in broken English for half the night. That feels like forever ago now, from the time before he’d even met Jongin. Maybe they’ll all go again in a few months. Whoever’s left.

But that’s the long answer. The short one is, “That it makes no sense with who’s still left. RnB would fit better.”

“He’s right.” Jongin flops down on his back, kicking his legs out, scrubbing his hands over his face, frustration personified. “The longer I train here the less I understand this company.”

Taemin would be fine if he could just understand himself again. He told Jongin, he came here to debut. For two years, that’s been his reason for living, and now, finally, he’s so close. What is he doing sitting here like this?

Taemin plants his palms on the floor, raising himself to his knees, and then to his feet.

“Are you a trainee? You don’t look like an idol.”

At the sound of her voice, Taemin jumps, badly enough that it knocks him right out of the song. He sees the girl who said it in the mirror before he turns around to look at her. She’s leaning into the doorway of the practice room, question mark on her face, the first person he’s seen since Jongin left. Taemin isn’t good with faces, but he’s never seen her around before, and she looks way older than him. He can’t just tell her she’s too late to start training, so he has to come up with something else that’s not, _Didn't you hear the music?_ It goes on without him, hitting the chorus while Taemin walks closer to her. He didn’t even know visitors were allowed.

“You have to audition if you want to get in,” Taemin says.

For one second, it almost looks like she’s going to laugh, but then she says, “Do you think I’m girl group material?”

If she needs to ask him, probably not?

“It’s not just based on looks,” Taemin tries telling her.

“SM’s whole motto is that pretty can’t be taught, but talent can. That’s what I’ve always heard,” she replies. “If you didn’t need training this place wouldn’t exist.”

And there’s also a reason so few people make it in to begin with, and a reason they’re down to twenty left, even if Taemin isn’t always sure why he’s one of them. He should probably just tell her to go find one of the instructors if she has questions about the program and get back to work himself, but somehow he’s trying again.

“Figure out if you’re better at singing or dancing and practice at home before you try out. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you have to show them something.”

But then all she says to that is, “Noona was kidding. Would it have killed you to call me pretty?” Taemin’s ears go hot, probably because he’s even worse at girls than Taewoo and he had no right to make fun of him, but at least Jonghyun’s not here to laugh at him—“Maybe you can still be useful~. I’m looking for someone who trains here. Kim Jonghyun.”

Jonghyun.

“What do you want with hyung?” Taemin blurts out, before dying inside at how he sounds. It’s not like it was with the man who turned out to be Jonghyun’s father, she’s not waiting around for him after dark, in the rain.

She smiles, the kind of smile that makes her whole face light up. She is really pretty, at least as pretty as the SNSD noonas, even if Taemin never said she wasn’t. “So you know him.”

Taemin knows her too. At least he’s pretty sure. He’s never met Jonghyun’s sister, but Jonghyun talks about her so much it feels like he has, and nothing about this girl is like what he said. Which means…“Choi Jiwon?”

Jonghyun’s girlfriend.

Her smile widens and she corrects him immediately, “Jiwon noona.” She narrows her eyes at Taemin, tucking her cropped hair behind her ear. “He’s talked to you about me? Then again, he probably told everyone everything.”

Taemin’s stomach knots up so tight it’s like he can hardly breathe all of the sudden. 

“People talk about him, not the other way around,” Taemin contradicts her before he can stop himself. He has to get past her to head for the door, but somehow his legs are frozen in place, feet nailed to the floor along with his eyes, and he has to force himself to say it. “I know where he is, I can go get him.”

“Is he busy?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

_When is he not?_ Taemin bites it back and says instead, “With vocal practice. We use different rooms for that.”

She nods, but then instead of leading him back out the door, she pushes past him and heads for the pile of exercise mats in the corner, sitting down and patting the space next to her. Like Taemin isn’t busy? Every step Taemin takes towards her piles up in the pit of his stomach. What is wrong with him, why is he being so weird? It’s not like she’s scary. From this close, her perfume fills his nose, fake and flowery. None of the girls in his class wear it yet, but high school must be different. Meanwhile, he probably stinks. He’s sweat through these clothes so many times today he can’t even smell himself anymore.

“How long have you been coming here?” she says.

“I started a few months after hyung.”

“So you’ve seen everything, huh.” She shoots Taemin another smile, leaning in to press her shoulder to his. “You probably know him better than I do at this point, considering he basically lives here. I only hear about the things he wants me to know~”

It’s the same for Taemin. A lot of the things he’s seen weren’t things Jonghyun showed him, either. He was just there. That doesn’t only include bad stuff, though, and it’s not like all the good stuff is lies, either, if that’s what she thinks.

“He’s the best singer here,” Taemin tells her. “I’m not just saying that. I wouldn’t.”

“What about his dancing?”

“He’s good.”

“And his face~?” Taemin’s ears go hot, but she rescues him before he can even try and answer that. “I’m kidding. I know better than anyone how cute he is, that’s how I got into this mess. I didn’t know the rest of it, though. I guess his head isn’t as big as I thought.”

“Shouldn’t you like him if you’re dating him?”

It’s out of his mouth before he can even think, and then it hangs in the air between them, huge and awful. Taemin has one moment where he wants to die, just melt or shrivel up or explode into tiny pieces, before he hears her laugh. She’s laughing. How was that funny? Her hand lands on the top of his head next, so small and light compared to Jonghyun’s. It takes everything he has not to shy away, so he has nothing left to meet her eyes.

“I like you,” she says, petting his hair. “What’s your name?”

What does that even matter? She and Jonghyun have been dating since last year at least and this is the first time Taemin has ever seen her, and even if he debuts with Jonghyun and they dorm together, she won’t be able to visit. Jonghyun probably wouldn’t tell Taemin whenever he’s leaving to go on dates, either. She can go back to being a person Jonghyun talks to him about sometimes, and Taemin can go back to being nothing.

It would be so weird not to answer, though. Taemin is being so weird. He’s wasting his own time.

“Lee Taemin,” he says.

Almost before he’s finished she says, “You’re Taeminnie? I’ve heard about you. He said you were cute, looks like he was right about something for once~”

That’s probably all Jonghyun has said about him. He’s told Taemin so many things. Jiwon bought me this bracelet, don’t let me forget it in my locker~. You think it’s weird, a girl giving a guy things like this? Just because you can’t see the things I’ve bought her too. She got her eyes tested today, I told her she’d look cute in glasses but she said she wasn’t asking my opinion. Have you ever even seen a bra? Your mom’s doesn’t count. How did you get that bruise, Taeminnie? Jiwon has a mole right there, I just thought of it. Everyone in her study group is guys. There’s no way they won’t hit on her, I think I would know how guys work better than she does, but she told me I’m being dumb. I don’t know how someone as smart as her ended up picking me—

_You haven’t fucked up._

_You’re the only one who doesn’t think so. Jiwon laughed at me._

“He’s right about a lot of things,” is what comes out of Taemin’s mouth, somehow. “I don’t know what hyung has said to you, but it’s not about bragging, he wouldn’t do that. It’s just, if you don’t believe in yourself, you won’t get anywhere. That’s how it is here.”

“That’s just life in general,” she tells him. Then, kicking her legs so that her shoes scuff against the floor, “Noona has to take the college entrance exam soon.”

Oh. That explains the study group thing. Taemin will have to wait for himself to start making sense again.

In the meantime, he tries to say normally, “It’s really stressful, right? There’s another hyung who’s taking it. Jinki hyung.”

“It fucking sucks.” Jiwon leans into him again, catching his eye this time, reaching for his wrist. “Say ‘fighting, noona~!’ Try.”

Taemin just barely escapes, sliding onto his feet again. “I’ll go get him.”

Jiwon just makes a face at him. “Do you hate noona?”

“I hate stuff like that,” Taemin says, quicker than he can think almost. If only the rest of him could be that fast, then he’d be out from under her eyes. As it is, it’s so hard to avoid them. There’s no reason to, anyway. She’s being nice to him and Jonghyun likes her and that should be enough for Taemin to, but instead he’s like this.

“How are you going to be an idol, then? You’re too honest, you’re gonna have to learn to pretend you like things you hate, and hate things you like. Tell noona a lie. Go on.”

Taemin’s stomach squirms like snakes. “You’ll know, though.”

“Two lies and one truth, then,” she presses him.

_I like you. I hate you._

_I don’t know why I do._

Taemin’s made it all the way to the doorway when she calls after him, “One more question.” When he turns back, she’s finally stopped smiling. “What do you think his chances are?”

That should be the hardest thing she’s asked him, since Taemin doesn’t know and there’s no way he could, but it’s the easiest. The answer has been staring him in the face for two years.

“If he doesn’t debut, then none of this means anything.”

And just like that, her smile is back, fainter than before.

“You should too,” she tells him, “Or else you’ll end up like me, having to deal with exams and college apps and shit. Should I quit real life, too?” Taemin turns to go again, but again, she calls after him, “Taemin-ah.” She pauses, unsure for the first time, but Taemin stops getting it when all she says is, “Just tell him Jiwon came to talk to him, okay?”

Taemin spends the entire walk to the vocal room working up to it, somehow.

All Jonghyun does is ask Taemin which practice room and then leave him behind, but that’s what Taemin expected anyway, even if nothing else on the planet could have gotten him out of the vocal room besides her, not Taemin, not even the clock half the time. He’d rather die than go back and wait for Jonghyun to leave with her, or worse, walk in on them “talking,” the way Taewoo and his girlfriend study. The furthest away he can get is the roof. It’s falling dark faster as autumn sets in, but the staff probably won’t lock it up until the sky is bruised purple and pricked with stars, and sure enough, when Taemin tries the door, it swings wide open with a blast of cool air. For the first time all day, his sweat will dry, and maybe by the time it’s safe to go back down, he’ll feel human again. When will that be, anyway? Jonghyun talks so much.

Jinki doesn’t say anything at all until Taemin sees him. He just smiles wanly up at Taemin, surrounded by textbooks as thick as Taemin’s middle. Taemin picks his way over them, sinking down onto his haunches next to Jinki.

“I thought you only came up here to sing.”

And to eat lunch, back when he still did. The nights he stays here late enough he skips dinner, too. He told Taemin he pigs out at breakfast to make up for it, but after a day this long, there’s no way he isn’t starving. But then, Taemin isn’t even hungry himself, not even a little.

“Today I’m thinking about jumping off,” Jinki confides in him, hitching another smile onto his face to show he’s kidding. “The thing with practicing this much is my voice gets tired. It feels like a waste to spend the time on other things, though.”

Even studying? Every time Taemin said fuck it about homework, Jinki’s always been there to tell him, _It’ll take less time to fix it now than it would take for it to stop bothering you that you didn’t._

“Are you tired, hyung?” Taemin asks him. “Not your voice, you.”

“Mm.” Jinki snaps the book in his lap shut and leans back on his hands, regarding Taemin. “Did you think I’d get this far~?”

He shouldn’t need Taemin to tell him, “You should go all the way.”

“It’s my personality that’s the problem,” Jinki sighs. “By the time SM finds out, it’ll be too late, I guess~”

“They all keep saying you’re too nice, right?” That’s what Sihyun said that day, and Kibum’s said it before too. Taemin sinks down onto his butt at the first sign of his legs cramping up, cold seeping into his pants from the concrete as he stretches them out in front of him, mirroring Jinki. “It’d be better if everyone were like you, but it’s not your problem if they’re not.”

Jinki sighs again, turning away from Taemin to stare out into the darkening sky. “I’m not that nice, anyway. I just don’t like to fight.”

“You were nice to me.”

Jinki laughs, shooting Taemin a look that’s all for show. “Were?”

“The first time we met, I meant,” Taemin tells him, just in case Jinki needs to hear what Taemin is 99 percent sure he already knows. “You did a lot better with dancing than I did with singing. You made a lot more sense to me than Ssaem, too.”

“You made more sense to me, too. Honestly, I don’t think I would have survived without you.”

Jinki says it so easily, but somehow his words have Taemin’s chest squeezing in on itself, almost trapping his voice inside. The two years that have passed since Taemin first came up here never seemed like a long time until just now, probably because he’s barely gotten anywhere since then. Maybe this moment will seem like goodbye to Taemin later.

“What about me, do you think I’ll make it?” Taemin says painfully. It’s not like it is with Jongin, who would never say no, no matter how many different ways Taemin asked him. People act like Jinki just says what people want to hear, but he’s always told Taemin the truth. At least he gets closer to it than anyone Taemin knows. “I keep thinking it doesn’t have to be this time. But then I think, what if I never get this close again? I just wish I could sing.”

“It’ll be hard to learn after you debut,” Jinki says, nodding.

Taemin wishes he’d lie for once. “Way harder than now, right?”

Maybe Jinki reads it all in his face, because he reaches over to pet Taemin’s hair, hand as big and warm and heavy as Jonghyun’s always is, so much heavier after Jiwon’s. Taemin resists this weird urge to turn away, stomach tightening.

“Hard doesn’t mean impossible, Taemin-ah,” Jinki says. “If it’s you, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’m tired, too,” Taemin didn’t mean to say, but it’s only Jinki, so it should be okay. Whenever Taemin says stupid stuff to him, he just forgets it. “Really tired. I wish I were your age already.” Or not, on second thought. Even lugging these books up here seems like too much work, let alone actually reading them. “Are you really going to take the college entrance exam?”

“I keep thinking that if I make the cut this time I’ll just put it off,” Jinki admits. “If I debut, I won’t be able to go, anyway, and if I don’t…I can just work at my parents’ shop for a year and try again. I’ll probably end up taking over the business anyway in that case, so it’d be good experience for me.”

He’s an only child, so that makes sense. Even if Taemin’s dad had gone on to help run his mother’s noodle shop instead of transferring to Seoul when the company asked him, Taewoo would have inherited it, not Taemin. Who knows, maybe he still would’ve seen Rain on his grandma’s grainy television and ended up right here.

“What do they sell?” Taemin asks.

“Meat.”

And he’ll be able to eat as much as he wants of it, then. If he does debut…he probably won’t go home for months, and he’ll be stuck on his diet for years and years, until hunger feels normal for him.

“If they don’t pick me this time, I’ll just stay and train some more,” Taemin says. “Next time, though…there’s nothing else I can do, hyung.”

For one long moment, Jinki just looks at him. Finally he says, “How did you get so good at dancing in the first place?”

That’s easy, at least, even if Jinki knows the answer as well as Taemin does. “I worked.”

“There you go,” Jinki says. “If you worked half as hard at school, you’d probably get into a SKY university.”

“You have to be smart for that, hyung,” Taemin says, so impatient with him he almost feels sick, all of the sudden.

“You’re not dumb. If you think you are, you’re being dumb~.” Jinki almost loses his balance leaning over to nudge his shoulder into Taemin’s, before he scoots closer, telling him, “Seriously, you always get the concept, and that’s the important thing. If you start thinking things through all the way you’ll be fine.”

Just because Jinki never lies doesn’t mean he’s never wrong. And it doesn’t matter, anyway, when he misses the point like that. Taemin struggles with himself for several endless seconds, but in the end all he has is what he started with.

“I worked this hard because I like dancing, I didn’t do it just because,” he says, and then, before he can stop himself, “I don’t know if I can live like that. I don’t want to.”

“Aigoo.” When Jinki reaches up to pinch Taemin’s cheek Taemin wants to hate him so badly, but he’s Jinki, so that’s impossible. His voice is so gentle when he goes on, “Do you already know everything you’ll ever like and dislike?”

_Do you hate noona?_

Who cares if he does or not? It’s not like he’s the one dating her, and she’s the one who laughed at Jonghyun.

“I know I don’t like school, I fucking hate it,” Taemin says out loud, ignoring the acid crawling up his throat. “High school will probably be worse.”

“People always say college is better.” Jinki’s mouth curls, the kind of smile that doesn’t belong on his face, the closest to ironic Taemin has ever seen him. “For one thing, you’ll be able to drink.”

Taemin knows about that already.

“My dad’s boss makes my dad drink until he’s sick sometimes,” Taemin says. And sometimes he goes out drinking all night when his high school band mates come up to visit, and only comes home to change for work. “I guess being an idol would be like that, too, though. That’s what Kibum hyung always says.”

Jinki tries smiling at him again, putting his whole heart into it, but his words still don’t match it. “How did this end up so depressing?”

“It started out that way.”

“Fighting, Taemin-ah,” Jinki says. He barely gives Taemin a second before he’s nudging him again. “Say it back?”

_Say ‘fighting, noona~!’ Try._

Taemin tips his head up towards the endless sky. The first time they met, Jinki said he wanted his voice to reach the clouds. Whatever Taemin says now will get lost up there._ I met Jonghyun hyung’s girlfriend. I get why he likes her but I don’t get why I don’t. They’re probably making out right now. I’m not thinking about it, there’s nothing to think about, so why is she still in my head? Come back down to the practice room with me. You don’t have to stay and go through the choreo, I just don’t want to go alone in case she’s still there. Do you still think I’m not dumb?_

Evals are tomorrow.

“Fighting, hyung,” Taemin says, and climbs to his feet.

The practice room is empty when Taemin gets back, and the CD player is still on his song. It sounds so loud when he starts it up, but by the time ten thirty rolls around, he can barely hear it anymore. If Jonghyun forgets him in here, there’s nothing to stop him from practicing all night, and by the time he collapsed, he’d be too tired to care how hard this floor is, or if Jonghyun was sleeping on the floor in the vocal room down the hall. If he’s even still here.

Ten forty. They’ll check for stragglers soon. Ten forty-five. Still no Jonghyun.

There’s no point in changing when there’ll be no one to smell him on the bus, especially if he sits all the way in the back and cracks the window open, and maybe there’s no point in climbing up onto the toilet seat and waiting in the dark for everyone to forget he exists, either. Maybe what he told Jongin was right. Or what he told Jinki.

_I’m tired, hyung. Really, really._

Taemin only hesitates for a couple seconds before passing the bathroom by. Jonghyun’s favorite vocal room is in the wrong direction, so Taemin barely has to think about it once he hits the stairs. He takes them two at a time and before he knows it he’s burst out into the open air. This isn’t the first time he’s gone home without Jonghyun, and even if Jongin and Moongyu aren’t here either, Gangnam is still thrumming with life, but the walk to the bus stop is so much lonelier somehow than the walk to the train station ever was, back when he first started here. The bus stop itself is even worse, since there’s nothing to do but sit and stare at his shadow and listen for the bus sighing its way up the street. It’s late, Taemin is sure. Very late. It should’ve been here by now, right?

Taemin turns at the sound of footsteps. He doesn’t know why his stomach has to lurch like that when it’s only Jonghyun, but Taemin’s day stopped making sense way before this. Taemin cuts his eyes away as Jonghyun drops down on the bench beside him, snatching his hand away when their fingers brush before he can even think, wedging it under his thigh. It starts to go numb, pins and needles prickling his skin, before Jonghyun finally says, “You were just going to leave hyung behind, huh. I checked all over for you before I left. It’s funny how this is the least obvious place.”

He doesn’t sound mad or anything, but somehow Taemin is telling the ground instead of Jonghyun, “I’m just tired today.” It’s not a lie, so why does it taste like one? And why does Jonghyun’s hand feels like an even bigger one, petting his hair, rubbing his back.

Part of Taemin is screaming at him to shrug him off, tell him Jinki is tired too, Jonghyun must be too, so why is he acting like Taemin is a baby, but instead he sits there and lets Jonghyun say, “Hang in there, Taemin-ah. They’ll probably cut us in half this week. Even if they want less than ten members, it won’t take long to make the last cuts.”

“I keep thinking maybe it’d be better if they didn’t pick me,” Taemin can’t stop himself from saying.

“Still?” Jonghyun leans into his side and instead of pressing back, Taemin lets himself be pushed, gripping the bench for balance. The wood is rough under his fingers, perfect for splinters. “You said that same thing to me before.”

“Sorry I’m repeating myself.”

Jonghyun’s hand sneaks around to pinch Taemin’s cheek, but the only escape is into Jonghyun’s side, and then Jonghyun’s hand falls onto his shoulder, squeezing Taemin close. “You also said you would try your hardest. Hm? You’ve gotten this far for a reason, even if you don’t see it.”

_What does it look like I’m doing?_ Taemin bites back. He already knows the answer anyway: nothing. It looks like he’s giving up and going home.

“I am, I’m trying really hard.” Taemin’s voice comes out so weird, all rushed and twisted up and weird and. “I’m just fucking tired, okay?”

“Taemin-ah—”

“I already said that too. Sorry.”

Taemin only has to live with that for a few seconds before there’s a flash of headlights, so bright it almost blinds him. The bus, fucking _finally._ Taemin springs up on automatically, shouldering his bag and stepping up to the curb. He doesn’t regret going first until he’s left picking his way down the aisles, listening so hard for Jonghyun’s footfalls behind him that the bus flings him forward as it lurches back into traffic, until Jonghyun’s hand shoots out to grab his arm and pull him back, warm and solid and there. For one second it’s like Taemin’s muscles won’t listen, leaving him frozen against Jonghyun, each of his fingertips pressing into Taemin’s arm, his breath gusting against his nape, his body like a wall, his foot under Taemin’s shoe, because he stepped on it. If he says sorry again Jonghyun might hate him, though. Taemin barely has to try to break Jonghyun’s hold, pitching into the first open seat and squashing himself against the window. He keeps his eyes trained on the buildings as they pass by, neon signs and office buildings lit up like checkerboards, but it barely takes a second for Jonghyun to swing his bag to the floor and scoot in next to him, taking up all the space Taemin tried to put between them. All Taemin would have to do is relax like a normal person, and they’d be pressed together from shoulder to hip. As it is Jonghyun’s eyes are burning into the half of Taemin’s face he can’t hide.

“Jiwon said you must like me a lot, but I guess she was wrong,” Jonghyun says finally. “What about her, did you like her?”

Taemin squishes his cheek against the cold glass. “I don’t know.”

“I liked her.”

Liked?

“She’s your girlfriend, hyung.”

For one long moment Jonghyun doesn’t reply, probably because there’s nothing more to say to that. Or not. “Ex.”

Taemin has had this conversation so many times before. The last time was at Dongdaemun, last month or something, and somehow it wasn’t this hard for him to find things to say last time, even if they weren’t the things Jonghyun wanted to hear or the things he needed to.

“Did you break up again or something?”

But not that. It sounds so much worse out loud than it ever did in his head. Stomach constricting, he forgets and turns to look at Jonghyun, in time for him to grunt, “Mm.”

“Why would she come all the way to the training center for that?” Taemin blurts out, before his heart squeezes in on itself and his voice flies out ahead of him. “Sorry, hyung, it just came out like that,” and when that doesn’t get that look off Jonghyun’s face, “Just wait until she stops being mad, that always works.”

Nothing Taemin ever says does, though. There’s nothing else left. His own words leave such a bitter aftertaste, but Taemin ignores it, reaching up to pet Jonghyun’s hair clumsily, soft and fine under his fingers. Jonghyun’s features give a little and his mouth curves, something so close to a smile.

“Did she seem mad to you?” he says.

Taemin hesitates. She said bad things about Jonghyun, but maybe that doesn’t mean anything. “I don’t know how she is normally.”

“It doesn’t matter, there is no ‘normally’ anymore.” Jonghyun sighs. “She came to talk things out. Soobin noona already graduated, so I’m out of excuses to see her.” He tries smiling again and gets a little closer. “Today was the last time.”

Wait, what? Taemin’s heart stops in his chest, then starts up again, beating hard enough to break his ribs.

“She dumped you for good?”

“I dumped her,” Jonghyun corrects him immediately. “No one dumped anyone, either, we just broke up. It just wasn’t working. We never had any time together, even less now than before, and it’s only going to get worse, and all we did was fight. And I need to focus.” Jonghyun trails off, staring into Taemin’s face with narrowed eyes. “What?”

Taemin doesn’t know, but if it were nothing, his body wouldn’t be slowing down like this all of the sudden, throwing him harder than the bus did before.

“Just…why did you break up all those times before?”

“For the same reasons.” That’s what Taemin thought. In a week, maybe Jonghyun will go back to thinking none of that matters if they have each other, or something that doesn’t sound like it’s out of one of those cheesy dramas Mom watches, but means the same thing. But now Jonghyun is telling him, “It’s complicated, Taeminnie. She saw it before I did, I guess. Or maybe I just didn’t want to.”

Taemin gets that. Instead of turning back to the window, though, he keeps his eyes on Jonghyun’s face. “It was always her?”

“Not this time, this time it was me,” Jonghyun says a second time. “That’s nothing to be proud of, Taemin-ah, why would you think I’m lying about that?”

It’s not that. Taemin wants to believe him too badly, is all. Before he can think he’s already reached out again and Jonghyun’s hair is at his fingertips again. He should’ve folded his hands together or sat on them or something, not been weird. Jonghyun makes that face again, tiny cracks in his expression. All Taemin has to do is say something stupid, and it’ll probably break. Jonghyun will. Lying is probably better, right? But sounding helpful and helping are two different things, and Taemin sucks at both, especially with this weird feeling taking hold of him, too bright too look at, too hot to touch, shaky and breathless and weird, weird, weird.

Before Taemin can come up with anything, Jonghyun reaches up to grab Taemin’s wrist, holding his hand aloft between them. “Stop thinking so hard, Taemin-ah, you won’t think of anything to say. Try again after you’ve had your first kiss.” Before Taemin can think through the fire set in his face, decide he’s mad again and pull out of his grip, Jonghyun slips his hand down to tangle their fingers together, laying them in his lap like he’s forgotten already. Taemin can’t. Each breath lasts longer than this whole day. His hand feels even bigger in Taemin’s, somehow. He misses it the first few times Jonghyun glances at him, brain blinking. “She was really pretty, right? Hyung wasn’t lying about that, either.”

“Mm.”

It hurts to admit it. Why, Taemin is done asking.

“If I don’t debut I’m really gonna hate myself,” Jonghyun says heavily. “Stop looking at me like I’m going to cry. I’m not. Really.”

“You don’t want the bus driver to see?”

“Taemin-ah~”

Taemin has to swallow his laugh, then smush the expression that came with it off his face, pressing it to the window. He never should have left the practice room behind, he should have stayed. He’s wasted so much time and now maybe he won’t be able to sleep. He doesn’t know if he’s too tired to, or if it’s that same something from before, that weird crashing feeling, the huge echoing blank where his thoughts should be. He’ll go through the choreo on the walk to his place, he’ll lay his blanket out on the floor and practice, so what if he can’t go all out. Evals are tomorrow. Evals are tomorrow. Evals are tomorrow.

Jonghyun squeezes his hand.

Some days school crawls. Today it passes in a blur, so fast the dread barely has time to build up in the pit of Taemin’s stomach until he reaches the practice room. Even with the eliminations, they haven’t asked him to sing, so all he has to do today is dance. That’s it. Jongin is the same, which is good, because he stopped being able to talk ten minutes back, after Taemin remembered to ask him how his test went and he said, _It went._ The silence between them stretches and stretches and stretches while the hyungs chatter around them, until Ssaem shows up and saves Taemin from going crazy.

Or not. They’re used to all the changes from normal evals, no talking, only a few at a time, one single line so Ssaem can see every little fuck up you make, but for the first time he tells them, “Honestly, it shouldn’t take until Monday to make up our minds, we should have made our decision by seven or eight. If you stick around, come find me around then, and I’ll give you spoilers.”

Taemin would have anyway, but there wouldn’t have been this hollowed out feeling in his chest the whole time. Whatever. Moongyu will probably fill it with junk food when they go hang out with him. Last time they went to his house he made real fried chicken.

It won’t taste like anything if Taemin doesn’t make it.

The choreo went the same as it did for the past week. It was supposed to go better. He was too slow. His lines were sloppy. He couldn’t even read the expression on his own face in the mirror, which means he didn’t even get the song wrong, he just didn’t get it. A million mistakes that look tiny on the outside but crush him inside.

“I won’t ask how it went,” Kibum says when he sees Taemin again. “Not because you don’t want to hear it, because I don’t need to. I know you did well.”

With Jinki it’s just, “You worked hard, Taemin-ah.”

And Jonghyun. “Are you going home early again, Taeminnie? I can’t decide which is worse, finding out now or waiting.”

“Waiting,” Taemin answers promptly. Jonghyun wouldn’t spend the weekend hoping, he’d spend it torturing himself. Somehow it’s so hard to make himself add, “I said I’d hang out with Jonginnie after this.”

Unless one of them gets cut. Taemin’s stomach plummets, hurtling down down down, so far he can barely feel Jonghyun’s hand in his hair.

“I got King Jeongjo and King Jungjong confused,” is all Jongin says, hours later, when they’re sitting in the practice room down the hall, watching the minutes tick down as the song goes on without them.

“They both came after crazy people, it’s easy to get them messed up,” is all Taemin knows to reply, except Sado was never king. Taemin’s dad told him once that Sado wasn’t crazy, either, the times he lived in were. Maybe the same goes for Yeonsangun, but he still killed a lot of people, Taemin is pretty sure the annals didn’t make that part up.

_SM isn’t crazy if they pick me, right? Maybe I was, for auditioning in the first place, and now I’m crazy for not even knowing if I want it. I’m the one who made fun of hyung but I’m scared I’ll cry in front of Ssaem._

Ssaem. Finally.

The room is so crowded again by the time he shows up that Taemin and Jongin end up squashed against the wall while Ssaem yells for quiet. Then he reads names off a sheet of paper. Jonghyun’s name is first, hitting Taemin so hard it leaves him dizzy. What else did he expect? Jinki. Taemin told him. Junmyeon…Kibum, thank God…Jinho…Minho. Each name twists Taemin’s chest up tighter and tighter, until finally—

“Lee Taemin.”

It takes Taemin another few heartbeats, another few names, to realize that silence from before is back. When he turns to Jongin, Jongin is ready with a smile. It looks so real, but how can it be?

Ssaem never said his name.


	11. Five

The stars are just as bright over the river as they were that night months ago, and just as far away. For the first five minutes, Moongyu and Jongin try and talk like normal, about school and video games and the dumb fights their parents are having, but it’s enough for Taemin to just keep up with them, heart weighing him down so much it’s hard to lift his feet. Even harder, to lift his head. He almost walks past them when they step off the path, following them stupidly as they cut across the grass towards the riverbank. The fence is so cold the metal almost sticks to Taemin’s hands, but all that matters right now is that it’s solid. It’ll hold him up if his legs stop working. The silence that falls is so much louder than the sound of water.

_I’m sorry, Jongin-ah. You’d probably hate me if I said that, but I’ll hate myself if I don’t. I don’t know why they picked me and not you. I don’t know anything._

“Is anyone else hungry?” Moongyu says out of nowhere. Taemin had forgotten food existed, but now his eyes shoot to Jongin’s face, only to find him staring out at the river, leaning against the fence, look on his face Taemin can’t read. All he knows is that’s not the kind of emptiness that snacks could fill, but still, Moongyu walks off, telling them, “No complaining about what I get, then.”

Once his voice fades the silence swallows them up again, the same exact one from the practice room. Taemin needs to break it. He needs to find something to say. He needs to be good at this for once in his fucking life. But moments pass and the city stares at them from across the bridge, lights glittering in the water at their feet, and all Taemin has is, “He did that so we could talk, right?”

“Mm.”

“This sucks.”

And Taemin is so useless, even if Jongin agrees with him again. “Mm.”

Does Jongin really have nothing else to say, or are there things he can’t? If the lump in Taemin’s throat is almost too big to get words around it, Jongin might be choking on the one in his.

“It doesn’t mean I’ll make it all the way.” Taemin leans onto the fence, folding his arms over it, letting the bar dig into his chest. “We still might get to debut together~”

That gets Jongin to look at him, which was maybe the last thing Taemin wanted, but it’s okay. Jongin isn’t glaring at him or anything, and there are no tears in his eyes or tracks down his face, but something in his expression still squeezes Taemin’s heart so hard he’s scared it will burst.

“Don’t give up, Taemin-ah. Or I really will hate you.”

“You don’t hate me already?” Taemin gets out somehow.

Jongin almost smiles. Almost. “A little bit.”

“I hate SM.”

“Me too.”

Taemin has to look away again to get the rest of it out. “Just don’t hate yourself. And you don’t give up, either.”

“I’m not going anywhere, don’t worry. I’m not old enough yet that I’d have to think about it.” Jongin leans in too, resting his chin on the top of the fence and peering over at Taemin. “Honestly, I knew this was going to happen. You know that feeling you get when you can feel something bad coming? That’s how it’s been for me for weeks.”

Taemin has no right to say this, not right now, not to Jongin, but somehow he’s saying it. “I’m scared if I do make it, it’s still going to feel like that.”

“It’s scarier going first,” Jongin agrees, so easily Taemin’s head spins. He shoots Taemin a faint smile. “You’ll have to tell me how it is, if you do make it. That way I’ll know how to deal with it when it’s my turn.”

Because his turn will come. This year will pass, winter will become spring, and the new boy group will debut, and life will go on. He’ll keep coming to the training center and pouring every little part of himself into practice in the hopes that someday, he’ll get some of them back. And Taemin…

“You don’t want to hear it from me, Jonginnie,” Taemin replies, throat closing up around his voice. “You’re way better at that kind of stuff.”

Jongin’s smile widens. “I’m way better at you than you are at yourself.”

“I meant talking. I never know what to say. Even if it’s in my head it never comes out right.” Taemin digs his shoe into the ground at his feet, staring out at the water, so dark it’s almost black away from the city’s reflection. If he leaned further out, almost doubled over the fence, then maybe he could see theirs. If he could see much at all right now. “If you want to cry, it’s okay. I’m not going to laugh at you. Jonghyunnie hyung does it in front of me.”

Jongin’s hand takes him by surprise, warm and gentle on his face, thumbing away the tears blinding Taemin, voice even gentler: “Look who’s talking.”

Shit. Taemin swallows hard, blinks fast, turns away, all the things that are supposed to work, but somehow his voice still comes out like _that_ when he says, “Don’t tell Moongyu.”

Jongin laughs at him, sound so open and clear it splits Taemin’s face into this smile that feels like it doesn’t belong, wrenching this noise out of him that’s halfway between laughter and sobbing. And now Taemin’s ears are tingling, too. He shies away from Jongin’s hand when he reaches for him again, scrubbing at his eyes furiously, but if he waits for everything inside him to go back to normal again, he might have to wait forever. Things might never be the same after this, for either Jongin or Taemin. If Taemin does make it, that is. If he doesn’t, it’ll be like this night never happened. At least until it happens again, years from now, and then, who knows. Maybe Taemin and Jongin will switch sides.

“I just hope I didn’t fail my test,” Jongin says. “Though maybe Mom will feel sorry for me after this.”

Taemin feels sorry. So sorry he could die.

“Jonginnie.”

“What?”

Taemin has to fight to get the words out. “Thanks for being my friend.”

The second he can bring himself to look again, Jongin gives him another smile. It looks like it hurts. “Be honest, did you hate me at first?”

Why is he asking something he already knows? Why is he making Taemin tell him again, “I told you, I was scared you’d take everything away from me.” Taemin takes a deep breath, then another, shaky, ragged, until he has it in him to go on, “That’s how I looked at things before I met you. You’ve never looked at me like that, not even now. You’re a way better person than me.”

Jongin takes so long answering that Taemin searches for the answer in his face, almost scared of what he’ll find. Which is nothing. He’s so bad at people. He has to wait for Jongin to say, “You want to know something funny?” and then keep his head up somehow, holding onto the fence, staring into Jongin’s face. “I never saw myself as your equal until I realized you did. You were so far ahead of everyone else, I was just running like crazy to catch up.” Jongin’s gaze drifts towards the river and the night sky. “I guess I’ll have to keep running.”

“I will too.”

“Good.”

That word means less than nothing to Taemin right now. Maybe tomorrow, when he thinks back to this moment, it’ll look different. Jongin’s smile will look less painful and the moon will shine brighter, so that Taemin will be able to tell between good and bad, funny and not, the tears Jongin caught and the tears he’s keeping back. Maybe his voice will sound like him, then. But right now…

“Jonginnie.”

“Mm.”

“It’s not the end,” Taemin says.

“I know,” Jongin replies. “It’s just the beginning.”

“Jongin-ah.”

Jongin shoots him a fake annoyed look and grunts louder, “Mm,” and just like that, the smile from before is back, forcing its way onto Taemin’s face again.

“What’s taking Moongyu so long?” Taemin pushes his shoulder into Jongin’s. “He must be giving you time to stop crying~”

There are so many things Jongin could retort, starting with, _I’m going to tell him it was you,_ but instead he says, “Nah, he probably can’t decide what to get. He knows everything you like.”

“You, too.” Moongyu is that kind of friend. The kind Taemin wishes he was. But he’s not, he’s only himself, and he’s all Jongin has right now, so he pushes his shoulder into his again, until Jongin presses back. “It’d be too mean to hide from him, right?”

Jongin’s laugh reaches the sky.

And somehow, after that, a week passes. Then another. Taemin’s days begin and end with training, same as they always have. He practices dance steps on the way to school and SM and home, and spends every single waking second he can in the practice room, no matter how empty it feels before Jongin comes in, or how lonely it gets after he leaves, so much earlier than he used to. Which is why Taemin drags himself out of bed on Saturday before the sun has come up and sneaks past his parents’ bedroom towards the door. That’s normal too, right up until a voice says, “Taemin-ah?”

“Dad.”

Taemin whirls around, expecting to find him wandering out of his room in his pajamas, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Instead he’s standing behind Taemin, dressed in a rumpled suit and tie.

“I never realized you left this early,” Dad says.

He wouldn’t. Whenever Taemin doesn’t have school or church, he leaves before him and Mom and Taewoo get up. He comes home later than Dad on most weeknights, too, when he’s supposed to go in.

“It’s the weekend,” Taemin reminds him stupidly.

“I have something that needs doing at the office,” Dad tells him. “Put your shoes on, Dad will give you a lift.”

“Your work is in the opposite direction.”

“There’s no traffic at this time, Taemin-ah.” Dad narrows his eyes at him while he toes into his loafers. “You don’t want to get stuck in the car with me~?”

Taemin toes into his sneakers and follows Dad outside. By the time Taemin has his seatbelt on and Dad eases his way out from between the neighbors’ cars and pulls out into the street, the clouds are dusted with pink and the stars are fading from view. Taemin lets Dad pick the music, slumping against his door and staring out the window while he flips through channels. He settles on Boohwal as they pass Taemin and Jonghyun’s bus stop. ‘Sarang Hal Su Rok.” He told Taemin once that this band was his life when he was younger, that Kim Taewon looked as cool with his guitar to him as Rain’s dancing did to Taemin. Taemin never told him he doubted it.

“What do you have to do today?” Dad asks.

“Practice.”

Dad shoots him half a smile, coasting to a stop at a red light as the guitars wail. “Nothing special?”

Taemin doesn’t know how to answer that. Ever since they started making cuts, everything has been different, but after months, that might as well mean nothing is. And now that they’re down to ten…

“They split us off from the others now.” Just saying it out loud tightens the knot in his stomach, but that’s not special anymore, either. He can’t even remember how it feels to breathe easy. “We’re learning a TVXQ song and they gave us positions.”

“You mean in the choreography?”

“Mm.”

The Monday after Jongin and the others were eliminated, they gathered everyone left in a practice room and Ssaem joked, _If you’ve never heard “Rising Sun” you can just leave now, you don’t belong here,_ and then, more serious than Taemin had ever seen him, _If you want to make it here, you have to stop thinking of yourselves as trainees. That’s not how you’ll be judged, not this time. You’re a long way off from your sunbaenims, but there are ten of you here, twice as many as them. Try and fill their shoes. Show us you have what it takes._ And now evals are closing in, and so is the Monday afterward.

Taemin doesn’t know what anyone else will see when they look at him. When he looks at himself, that’s all he sees. Plain and skinny and short, acne that makes the lady from the program sigh and tut and scold him. But Jongin is way better looking than him and he doesn’t have any pimples, so what does Taemin know? Just dancing. He just has to stick to that.

The light turns green finally and Dad makes his turn, downtown rising up like a wall in the distance, on the other side of the river. Taemin closes his eyes and lays his cheek against the glass. Dad will know he’s not sleeping, though, and he’ll feel the bump when they hit the bridge. 

“What about singing?” Dad asks, so gently Mom must have told him at some point not to ask at all. 

So what if Taemin’s insides turn to stone, he’s not a baby. He can talk about it. He barely has anything to say, anyway. “I only have to sing for the chorus. I don’t have any lines.”

“You do so well with dancing you don’t need any.” His hand lands in Taemin’s hair, ruffling it. Taemin resists the urge to squirm away, flatten himself against his door. “Dad never got to sing either. In my band, I mean. They stuck me with the bass.”

That’s cool, though, “That’s what Jonghyun hyung played.” Dad looks over at him, surprised, probably because he doesn’t know, “He was in a band in middle school. Zion. He said that’s how SM found him, they saw him play at a festival or something.”

How could Mom not mention that? She’s so busy babying Taemin and thanking Jonghyun for looking after him that she misses all the stuff that’s actually interesting.

“So we do have something to talk about. I’ll have to tell Mom that~.” Dad smiles over at Taemin. “You’ve seen how she is, she barely lets Jonghyunnie breathe while he’s over, I guess because you and Taewoo never tell her anything anymore. But then after he goes home, she always tells me off for not saying enough.”

And now out of nowhere, Taemin’s heart is hurting.

“Because he doesn’t have a father, right?” he says before he can stop himself. His stomach twists at how that sounds, and then he’s adding all in a rush, “He does, they just don’t live together. I’ve met him.”

Dad takes several long moments to even try to answer that, reaching over to scrub his hand through Taemin’s hair again. Finally he says, even gentler than before, “Adults aren’t perfect, Taemin-ah.”

They’re just people, how could they be? That doesn’t mean Jonghyun has to forgive his dad, though. And even if Jonghyun does, Taemin never will, that’s for sure. Even if he’s never seen him after that night, even if he never does again. Even if he never sees Jonghyun again either, after evals. The person Taemin saw in the dark and the rain isn’t what a father looks like. On the other hand, the person listening to cheesy music and driving with both hands on the wheel and shooting glances at Taemin like he’s trying to figure out how to take that back without lying to him…

“I know,” Taemin says. “Not being perfect isn’t the same as being bad, Dad. Don’t tell me it’s complicated, either.”

“Aigoo.” Dad pinches his cheek, too soft to hurt at all. “You’re lucky your mom and I are boring.” When Taemin shoots him a look of his own, the smile is back on Dad’s face. “That goes for you too, Taeminnie. What you said. It’s okay if you’re not perfect. None of those boys are. Just do your best.”

And Taemin is back to not wanting to talk about it. “What are you doing today?”

“Just catching up on some things,” Dad says easily.

That doesn’t sound like something to get up at the crack of dawn for. “What about this morning?”

“I need to use the printer.” Oh. They have a computer at home now, but not that. Maybe if Taemin makes it, they can get one. Saying that out loud is asking to get cut, though, and Dad would probably rather die than hear it, anyway. Dad clears his throat. “Your mom said that Jonginnie got cut.”

“Mm.”

Taemin ignores the pang in his heart. Somehow he needs to focus. Somehow they’re minutes away already.

“What about Jonghyunnie?” Dad asks.

That’s easy. “He has the most lines out of all of us.”

Dad nods, saying, “Your mom says he’s good. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sing.”

“You will.”

Maybe on the radio on another day like this, next spring. Maybe Taemin will be sitting right here beside him again, and then he’ll get to hear it too, for the first time in months and months. Or maybe…

Maybe nothing. The car slows to a stop. They’re here.

It’s never bothered Taemin before that there are no windows in most of the practice rooms, but that was before the walls started closing in like this. If there were no clock ticking on the wall, there’d be no such thing as time in here anymore, either, just four minute bursts piled on top of each other from the song starting and stopping and starting. A week ago they started singing live as they practiced and kept going until it felt like there was no air left in the room, and yesterday they danced long enough for one of the hyungs to stagger off to the bathroom to be sick, and Minho spent half an hour patting his back while he puked his guts out. Today Ssaem handed out mics. No one said anything when Taemin left his off, probably because they didn't notice. There’s no point, anyway, his voice isn’t meant to be heard over the others’. He can hang onto it and try later, after this is over and the room empties out and Taemin is alone. It’s bad enough that he’ll have to hear, so bad his stomach eats itself all afternoon, and he’s scared if he eats dinner he’ll be the next one to throw up. But the instant rice bowls Jinki bought everyone have been sitting in a bag in the corner for hours, and when Jonghyun peels back the plastic on Taemin’s and hunts down a spoon for him, he can’t stop himself from digging in. Around him, the hyungs talk in monosyllables and grunts, hoarse from singing, but no one says anything to him. Taemin hasn’t used his voice all day, and now he’s buried it underneath mouthful after mouthful after mouthful.

Junmyeon is the first to complete a sentence. “Why do you think they picked TVXQ instead of Suju? There are ten of us, that would have been easier for them to figure out.”

“You think it means something that it was meant for five people? That doesn’t make any sense, though,” Minho says through a mouthful of rice. “Just be grateful it’s not hip hop after all. I would have debuted by myself.”

“I can rap, and Kibummie can too,” Jonghyun cuts in, but Junmyeon ignores him. 

“I’m not complaining. I almost auditioned with this song.”

“You had the hair for it back then,” Jonghyun says, leaning across Taemin to scrub his fingers through Junmyeon’s hair, cropped short. “You could still bleach it in back, I guess.”

Like Yoochun in the music video. Taemin never even noticed the first million times he watched it in the past few weeks, so focused on every cut of them dancing, but after ten million more, that hair is all he sees anymore. Everything else is a blur.

“Have any of you guys ever dyed yours?” Junmyeon says, spoon paused halfway to his mouth as he glances around at them. “I heard it’s painful, I heard your scalp can get messed up.”

“I dyed my own before,” Kibum says from the other side of Taemin. He told Taemin once that he pierced his ears himself, too, but then he made Taemin promise to never even try it. “My parents made me shave it all off. I had one day where I was the coolest kid in school, and then weeks of humiliation.” He smiles. “They won’t be able to say anything if it’s SM, though~”

Taemin keeps trying not to think of things like that, but keeping them out of his head is so hard. The morning Dad drove him to practice it was a printer. When the kid behind him spent all first period kicking his chair, it was the days of school he’d get to skip if he debuted. Today, right now…what’s harder to keep out is the thought of what will happen if he doesn’t debut.

“Do you want the rest of my rice, Taemin-ah?”

No, but Jonghyun doesn’t wait for an answer, sliding his half-empty bowl across the floor, plastic skittering across the floor until it comes to a stop in front of Taemin, leaving Taemin to figure out how to fit it inside him with this awful feeling. But the hyungs keep talking and talking and he keeps eating and eating. Almost as soon as he picks up Jonghyun’s bowl, Kibum replaces it with his own, telling Taemin, “You’re the only one who doesn’t need to lose weight.”

“He should gain some,” one of the hyungs says. “He looks like he weighs less than most of SNSD.”

Taemin’s stomach twists up even tighter and he has to fight to swallow, but his next bite is his biggest yet, mouth too full to talk.

“Is being skinny a crime now?” Jonghyun says for him, but that’s laughter in his voice, sharp and ragged. When he reaches up to pick rice off Taemin’s cheek, Taemin turns away from his touch before he can even think, scooting closer to Kibum.

Who’s smirking for some reason. “What about being short~?”

Jonghyun leans across Taemin to rap Kibum’s forehead with his spoon, and if this thing bubbling up inside Taemin is laughter, if that’s what it is, his mouth is stuffed too full to let it out. He swallows it back instead.

“Why are we even talking about stuff like this?” Jinki. It’s the first thing he’s said since he told Taemin this morning, _If I die today I’m leaving everything to you, Taemin-ah~,_ but he’s so far past joking now, hours and hours of dancing later. “Let’s hurry up and eat. Ssaem said he’d be back soon.”

Jonghyun rubs his hand down Taemin’s back, big and warm. “Eat, Taeminnie.”

What does he think Taemin is doing?

Taemin doesn’t know. This whole time, he never thought, he just did, and that’s all he should be doing now. During practice, after lessons, on the way home and on the way to school, shuffling his feet under his desk in school, laying the blanket across his floor at night when he can’t sleep, even in his dreams, burning the choreo into his muscles and the song into his heart, and finally, evals.

Evals.

But instead Taemin can’t breathe. Everything rushes in and out. He thinks he’s shaking, he thinks they’re going to see. All the people here to watch besides Ssaem, vocal trainers only the hyungs know, marketing people and directors of big important sounding things, like Creative and Performance, and Lee Sooman sunsaengnim. Taemin has seen him twice since his audition, maybe more, but he can’t think back right now, he has to focus.

Jonghyun’s hand slides up to grip the back of his neck, the one real thing in the world. “You can do it, Taeminnie.”

_Focus._

“You too, hyung.” Jonghyun shouldn’t need to hear, but this is so important suddenly. “Do your best. It’s you, so that should be enough.”

For Taemin, though…

The moment Jonghyun’s hand falls away and they take their places, everything slows down and speeds up. His microphone slips in his palm, because somehow he still has sweat left after the last two years, and his heart is hammering hard enough to break his ribs, so loud he can’t hear himself think. Which is fine, because there are no thoughts in his head. Just Jonghyun’s voice.

_You can do it, Taeminnie._

_You can do it. You can do it. You can do it._

_I saw you, too. Dancing. I asked Ssaem about you, and when he told me how old you were I wanted to jump off the roof._

_You’ve gotten this far for a reason, even if you don’t see it._

_Thanks. For not laughing at me. For being you._

Taemin never said thank you back. After this, he will.

After.

It felt like an impossible word, but it was less than five minutes away. It takes so much longer for the feeling to come back into Taemin’s legs, and Ssaem didn’t say anything about spoilers this time, so there’s no reason for Taemin to stay after evals, except to wait for Jonghyun and go home together. The bus takes forever to come, but the city flies by faster than it ever has, like a blur in Taemin’s window. Jonghyun doesn’t ask him if he wants to get off at Dongdaemun and Taemin has never told him first that he was hungry, and he’s not today. It’s not that. When the bus pulls up at their stop, the stars are winking down at them and the moon is hanging in the sky. It looks like an eyelash, like if someone blew on it, it might disappear. They’re all the way down here, though, and it’s all the way up there, and it’s not going anywhere in their lifetimes, and Taemin is having such weird thoughts, now that he can think again. He can’t remember anything from their performance. Just that he didn’t trip and he couldn’t even hear his own voice. Just Jonghyun’s.

And now somehow it’s been an hour. Jonghyun hasn’t said anything since, _Let’s just go, Taeminnie. If we stay here any longer we’ll go crazy. We won’t find out until Monday._

Monday. It’s been so long since it stopped being his least favorite day of the week. It didn’t matter that it meant the start of the school week or that his one day off was over, just that the training center was open again, after being closed on Sunday. Now some crazy part of him wishes it would stay closed forever.

Somehow he gets out, “Thanks for everything, hyung.”

Taemin can feel the look Jonghyun shoots him, but he keeps his eyes on his feet, even though it’s been a year since he needed to watch where he walks. Jonghyun’s hand is harder to ignore, so big and warm on his back.

“You, too.”

“What did I ever do?” Taemin blurts out.

Jonghyun doesn’t laugh, just shoots him another look that hits Taemin so much harder than it should, hand sliding up to squeeze Taemin’s shoulder gently. “You’re the only person I talk to about a lot of things, other than Mom and noona. Maybe it’s because you don’t talk back~”

“I talked to you about a lot of things, too.”

Jonghyun probably thinks that’s a lie, but he allows, “Some. Not a lot.”

Important things, though. Mom and Dad and Taewoo, the friends he use to have, Jongin and Moongyu, Taemin’s fears and doubts. His dreams.

“Hyung.”

“What?” Taemin takes so long trying to force the words out of his chest that Jonghyun squeezes his shoulder again and prompts him again, “What is it, Taeminnie?”

This hill has always been this steep, right? For some reason it’s taking Taemin’s breath away. Or maybe that’s the thing in his chest, so big and ugly, crushing his heart and his lungs and twisting everything up so tight he’s scared it might come out as tears. He’ll know soon. They’re almost to the top. To the part where they say goodbye.

When he finds it again, his voice comes out so normal it’s weird. “If I don’t make it, I’ll probably just go home alone. On Monday, I mean. Don’t look for me.”

“What if I don’t make it either?”

What if the world turned upside down?

“I was being serious," Taemin shouldn't have to say.

“So am I.”

Jonghyun’s other hand comes up, taking Taemin by the shoulders and turning him around to face him. There’s no one around, so it’s okay if Taemin’s legs have stopped working on him again, hours and hours after evals. It’s okay if it takes him this long just to raise his head and look Jonghyun in the face again.

“I’m not like you, hyung. Sometimes I just need to be alone. Especially when it’s bad.”

Jonghyun just frowns at him, so normal Taemin almost hates him for a second. “What are you talking about? You did well.”

How would he know? “You weren’t watching, you were busy with your part.”

“If you’d made a big enough mistake, we all would have noticed,” Jonghyun tells him, almost impatiently, like Taemin is just being stupid or something. When Taemin twists free of his hold and starts walking again, he gets maybe three steps before Jonghyun falls in beside him again. “Small mistakes are normal, we all made them.”

“I didn’t sing at all,” Taemin points out, even though he shouldn’t have to. But they shouldn’t be having this conversation either, this isn’t what he meant at all, and, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, I was just saying.”

“You don’t just say things like that.” Jonghyun’s hand comes up again, too warm and firm for Taemin to dodge, arm coming up around his shoulders, squeezing Taemin in close to his side. “You can talk to me, Taeminnie.”

Taemin does. More than anyone else, he talks to Jonghyun. He told him that, too, just five minutes ago, and there were so many other things he had to tell him, but somehow that’s his building already. A minute back he couldn’t walk fast enough to get away, but now it’s so hard just to step out of the circle of Jonghyun’s arm and stand in the shadow of the gate. And if it was impossible to raise his head before, now it’s like he can’t stop staring. Jonghyun looks exactly the same as he has at the end of a hundred nights just like this, still in his sweats, hands stuffed in the pockets of his coat, hair blacker than the sky, street light splashed across his face. It doesn’t have to be this time, this Jonghyun hyung. Taemin has so many others he could remember. Kibum has probably taken a hundred pictures of them together, too, when Taemin sees him on Monday he can ask for some. And if he doesn’t make it either, if he sticks around after that, he and Taemin will probably take hundreds more together, until there’s no more hole where Jonghyun used to be.

Yeah. That feeling is still here, and Taemin still can’t breathe. Somehow he gets out, “Night, hyung.” The next thing is turning away, remembering the passcode to get in, but instead he’s saying, “I meant when I said thank you.”

Jonghyun should smile and pet Taemin’s hair, say, _You better have~,_ not stand here and stare back, look on his face that hurts Taemin’s heart.

“What about the other things you said, did you mean them too?” Jonghyun says finally. But before Taemin can even try and answer, try and remember what he even said, just try and _breathe,_ he goes on, “If you don’t want me to walk you home on Monday, I won’t. I’ll sit in the front and you can sit in the back, or I’ll wait and take the next bus, if that’s what you want.” Jonghyun narrows his eyes at him, the way he always has whenever he thinks Taemin is trying to get away with something. Taemin never is. “But if you mean you don’t want to talk to me again, I’m just going to keep talking to you. You don’t have to answer, you can ignore me for the rest of our lives, but I’m not going to ignore you.”

When Taemin talked to Jongin that night, he thought it’d take him years to see what the other side looked like. Except it’s barely a month later, and here he is, and nothing looks any different. But somehow everything is. 

“It’s not about ignoring or not,” Taemin says somehow. “You’ll be really busy, hyung. You won’t have any time.”

_And we’re not friends. I’m just a dongsaeng you looked after. You didn’t even have to, I’ll be fine here on my own. And you’ll be more than fine, wherever you’ll be._

“Will you hate hyung if I debut and you don’t?” Jonghyun says, of all things.

“No.”

The word rises up like a wall before his throat can close around it. How could Jonghyun even think that?

“But looking at me would make you hate yourself?” Jonghyun guesses.

That’s harder. Taemin could stand here all night, scuffing his shoe along the pavement, swallowing back this feeling, waiting for better words to come, until the streetlight flickered off and dawn broke around them, but that expression would still be on Jonghyun’s face. Telling him, _I’m scared you’d stop looking back. I'm scared I'll never see you again, except on TV_ won’t get it off. It'd just make Taemin sound so stupid. He's being so fucking stupid.

Jonghyun knows better than to wait for him to come up with the right answer, anyway.

“I guess you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I’m just as sure that you’ll make it, as you are that I will,” he says. “You know I wouldn’t just say that. From the first time I saw you, I knew you’d make it.”

“I believe you.” With all his heart, Taemin believes him, which is probably why his voice comes out sounding like nothing he's ever heard. “Thanks, hyung. Even if you’re wrong this time, I won’t forget it.”

Jonghyun catches his wrist in his hand before he can punch the passcode into the gate, but it’s his voice that stops Taemin’s heart. “You sound like you’re planning on forgetting me.”

“I couldn’t,” comes flying out of Taemin’s mouth, but who cares if it’s embarrassing. Jonghyun has to know that.

“Then stop trying to say goodbye, okay?”

That’s better than not saying it. If it’s not the end, if they’ve both made it, then Jonghyun can live with it for two whole days. But if this is it, and Taemin is getting left behind, Taemin would have the rest of his life to regret it.

“Either way, this is the last time. Things will be different after this,” he gets out.

Jonghyun releases his wrist to cup Taemin’s face in both his hands, raising his chin to look Jonghyun right in the eye, leaving him nowhere left to hide. Taemin looks. He looks and looks.

“I told you a long time ago, I’ve never done anything for you because I had to. I did it because I liked you,” Jonghyun tells him. “Don’t you like me?”

“Mm.”

“Use words, Taemin-ah. You’ve never said it once, this whole time.” Jonghyun just barely squishes his cheeks, just enough to make Taemin ugly. Just enough to hurt, somehow. “If things are going to be different we can start there~”

“I just said I didn’t hate you.”

Eyes narrowing again, Jonghyun retorts, “That’s not the same thing at all.” 

It’s not.

“You already know.”

Jonghyun smiles faintly.

“And you know I do, so it can’t hurt to tell me.”

It can’t?

Seconds pass. An eternity. No time at all. The words are right there. Even if Jonghyun hadn’t given them to him to say, they would be. He uses them all the time, for food that tastes good, manga he wants Jongin to read, songs he could listen to forever, things that are good for him, things that are supposed to be bad, memories that make him want to go back. Taemin breathes in.

“I like you,” he says.

It can, somehow. It hurts. So much Taemin could die from it. Jonghyun’s hand makes him so dizzy, sliding up into his hair, petting it, playing with Taemin. His smile makes him dizzier, blinding him. Before it can fade and Jonghyun can turn away and this moment in his life has to end, Taemin has to say something else. Anything.

“Do you want to come up?”

The words come up without his permission, sudden, painful. Jonghyun was the one who didn’t want to say goodbye, but now he’s shaking his head, telling Taemin, “I better go, it’s late,” like Mom or Dad or Taewoo would even care. But there’s not a single other thing Taemin can say to stop him when he rubs his hand over his hair one last time and steps away.

All that’s left is, “Good night, hyung.” After everything they just said, it still tastes like goodbye. And maybe it feels even worse. Jonghyun is still right here, he’s been right here for so long, and Taemin doesn’t want him to go. His hand shoots out before he can stop himself, fingers catching in sleeve of Jonghyun’s coat. “Hyung.”

Jonghyun smiles at him again, easy as anything. “What now?”

This is the last time, so it’s okay. And even if it weren’t it still would be. That’s what Taemin tells his heart, thudding in his chest with each step forward he takes, and then he has Jonghyun’s arms around him, squeezing him tight, Jonghyun, warm and solid against him, and nobody will know if his heart speeds up even more, if his pulse is crashing like waves, if he closes his eyes and breathes.

_Hyung._

Taemin can’t sleep on Sunday night, right up until he wakes up on Monday like normal. Breakfast tastes like breakfast, Taewoo is still Taewoo, telling Taemin things like, “Mom made the tamagoyaki for you, eat more,” and meaning, _I can’t do anything for you, but you’re okay, right?_ School is still school, too. The bus picks Taemin up at the same stop he’s been going to since he started middle school, and the train comes once he’s waited long enough, and the training center is right where he and Jonghyun left it, two whole days ago.

Training won’t still be training, though.

Taemin is past thinking he’s going to be sick, but still, he lingers outside, gazing up at it. His first week here, it seemed so tall, and the first time he went up on the roof, the view was endless. Somewhere along the way this place became another part of his life, though, and now that he looks around, the buildings around it are all taller.

And above them, the sky is still blue.

Taemin pulls the doors open and steps inside. The first floor is empty and silent, and so are the stairs. He knows before the sound reaches him, so many voices mixed together he can’t hear anything they’re saying. He’s going to have to look for himself, maybe if he’s looking someone on the outside will know what’s going on and tell him, maybe he won’t even have to ask first. He barely turns the corner, though, when a hand shoots out of nowhere to grab him, dragging him forward so suddenly Taemin almost trips over his own feet. The crowd parts around them, and Taemin is going to be sick, he was wrong, he’s going to be sick, where is the bathroom, shit shit shit—

But then he’s let go and it all stops. Taemin’s heart and his brain and his whole entire life. The first thing he sees when he looks up is Jongin smiling at him like crazy. The second is Minho’s back, blocking his view, then Jinki smiling down at him, so big his eyes have disappeared. Then there’s Kibum, taking him by the shoulders, “How are you later than me, Taeminnie, did you forget what today is. Look. _Look,”_ pulling him to where he can see.

_The five boys who will debut this spring are:_

_Lee Jinki_

_Kim Jonghyun_

_Kim Kibum_

_Choi Minho_

_Lee Taemin_

Taemin doesn’t even get to read it twice.

“Hyung fucking told you,” Jonghyun’s voice says behind him, and then Jonghyun’s arms around him again like the last two days never happened, spinning him around and around like they did and they’re over and it’s okay. It’s so much more than that. Too much more. Jonghyun is squeezing him so tight tears should probably come out. It’s okay if they don’t, that’s okay too. Jonghyun is crying enough for both of them.

No.

All five of them.


	12. Phone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I realized I made a continuity error in this chapter! Taemin still has one more year of middle school. Sometimes I get confused and start thinking in terms of the American system haha.

For the third day in a row, Mom made tamagoyaki fresh for breakfast, coming in just as he sits down to lay the plate right in front of him. Taemin has lost track of the days where she’s dropped a kiss on his head on her way to her seat since he stopped trying to dodge her, but today she drops something onto the table in front of him, too. Small and blue and folded shut.

A phone.

Taemin’s eyes fly to Mom’s face, but Taewoo is way ahead of him. “You got him a phone? Seriously? That’s not fair, I’ve been asking for one for months—”

At Mom’s look he falls silent. Like he was supposed to. Taemin’s stomach twists up, like it wasn’t. He lets Mom reach for him again, this time to pet his hair.

“I already put our home number in, so you’re out of excuses from now on,” she says, narrowing her eyes at Taemin. “Call if you’re going to be late.”

“What if I wake you up, though?”

“You won’t.”

“But—”

“No buts.” It’s not her voice but the look on her face that cuts him off. “Hold onto it, Taeminnie. And don’t lose it.”

She’s been wearing that same expression on and off ever since the end of November, when Director-nim and the people from the program called her and Dad in to discuss Taemin’s future and have them sign off on his debut. It took a whole hour of explanations and assurances and signatures on all kinds of forms, Dad listening so hard to every word Taemin could practically see them go in, Mom forgetting which questions they'd already answered, but when the three of them walked out in the end, all Mom asked Taemin was, _What do you want for dinner tonight?_

Taemin still doesn’t know if he was supposed to hear, _Since I won’t be able to cook for you soon._

“He loses everything,” Taewoo butts in, even though no one asked him.

Mom shoots him another look before giving Taemin a smile. It looks like hard work. “Not this, okay? Keep it with you.”

If Taemin puts it in his pocket, he could lose it during gym class, but if he buries it deep, deep inside his backpack, maybe it’ll end up crushed by his books? And maybe he’ll forget that it’s in there. Plus he won’t be carrying it much longer anyway, since February is right around the corner and school is almost out. Who knows if it'll start back up before they debut or not. Taemin doesn’t know anything.

His pocket it is. It was so light in his hand, but somehow it weighs him down so much as he shrugs his coat on and shoves his feet into his sneakers and shoulders his way out the door before Mom can decide if she wants to catch him up in a hug. He barely makes it onto the sidewalk before Taewoo falls in beside him silently. Out of the three of them, he’s been the most normal, but with Mom and Dad acting so weird, somehow that feels weirder.

“You can borrow it, hyung,” Taemin offers.

Taewoo half-smiles, shaking his head. “That’s okay.”

“I don’t care if you use it to talk to your girlfriend.”

“I see her every day at school, anyway. It’s better to keep her wanting more~.” Taemin barely has to try to make the grossed out face Taewoo is looking for. Instead of his smile widening, though, it fades, and he takes a couple seconds too long to go on, each one piling up in the pit of Taemin’s stomach. “When I save up enough to get one, I’ll give you my number. Until then, don’t only ask for Mom, okay? Me and Dad exist, too.”

They’re talking about it. The thing they haven’t talked about these past two months. Except what comes out of Taemin’s mouth is, “Why do you care when I come home?”

“After you move out, Taeminnie.”

Into the dorm. Kibum has been living in one with other trainees for almost a year at this point and his parents and grandma are all the way in Daegu, and he’s fine. Taemin will be too. He just has to figure out how to fill in the hole opening up in his stomach, stop his throat from closing, keep his heart beating like normal, breathe. Just breathe.

In the meantime, Taewoo’s hitched the smile back on his face, so close to the real thing. “Are you getting out early again today?”

“Mm.”

“Lucky,” Taewoo says, making this stupid face at Taemin, the same one he made over the phone. Taemin doesn’t know how to tell him to stop trying so hard, but maybe he should be telling himself to try harder.

_It’s just as bad as school. I told you they’re making us learn Chinese, hyung. Which means we’re going to promote in China, I guess, which is way further away than Daegu. And the kids in my class hate me twice as much now so it doesn’t matter if I get out early, it adds up the same._

_I’ve never practiced this much before, either. It’s tiring. I’m so tired._

“Hurry up, hyung,” Taemin says out loud. “We’re going to miss the bus.”

The phone stays in his pocket and the back of his mind all through class and the ride over to SM, Chinese class and diction class, until finally it’s time to change for practice, and he gets stuck. Is it okay to put it in his locker and forget about it? Just for a while, not forever. Probably better than dancing with it in his pocket, what if it flies out and breaks or something. Before he can put it away, though, Kibum’s voice stops him.

“What’s that?”

Taemin shows him. “My mom gave it to me.”

Kibum’s face goes a little strange. No one around Taemin ever acts normal anymore, they just pretend like he’s dumb. Like now, Kibum only needs an extra couple seconds to wipe his expression blank, and then he’s telling Taemin, “Too bad there’s no point giving you my number.”

Now that they’ll be living together, he means. But what Taemin gets is, “You have one too?”

Some of the kids at school do. The girl who sits next to him spends half of class texting someone under her desk, and they’ve all been trading phone numbers now that the year is ending and their class will be split up. Taemin has no one he wants to see again, and none of them would ever ask him anyway.

“Had,” Kibum corrects him. “Don’t let that hyung from the company see, or he’ll take it away from you.”

“What, why?” It just pops out of him, but this why everyone treats him like he’s dumb, because he says stuff like that. “He took yours away from you?”

“I gave it to my parents to hold onto, don’t you know how expensive those things are?” Kibum corrects him immediately, like that was even stupider. Before Taemin can tell him he does, before he can even get the words out with his insides twisting up, Kibum shakes his head at Taemin, reaching up to pet his head, scrubbing his hand through his hair for emphasis. “It’d take longer than we have right now to explain it to you, Taemin-ah. It’s probably fine if it’s you, anyway, if you told him you were talking to your mom he’d believe you.”

Because he thinks Taemin is stupid, too. They all do. Mom, Dad, Taewoo, and now Kibum, and.

“They don’t want you talking to your boyfriend?”

Probably because he is. So fucking stupid. Jonghyun said it was okay, he said Kibum would’ve thought he was stupid for not knowing too, but he almost dies inside, letting those words twist in the air, meeting Kibum’s eyes somehow.

“I don’t have one,” Kibum says shortly, before he smiles and suddenly Taemin can breathe again. “I’m the type to just go on a couple dates, then I get bored. I’m cool like that.”

“More like you have no life and they stop calling,” Jonghyun says from behind them.

Kibum scoffs. “Aigoo, look who’s talking.”

“She didn’t break up with hyung, hyung broke up with her.”

Kibum’s face falls open, and his laughter crashes down on Taemin’s ears as he pulls him close, away from Jonghyun. “Is that what you’re teaching this kid?”

Face hot, voice rising, Taemin says quickly, “He said it wasn’t a good thing,” but that’s just another thing he should have kept inside, if the look it puts on Jonghyun’s face is anything to go by.

“It’s not,” Jonghyun says, hitching his mouth into a smile. “I haven’t been with a girl in months. Or even seen one.” What about the girls at school or the ones they still run into in the hallway, how do they not count? But Taemin forgets all about them watching Jonghyun’s expression shift, his mouth curling into a smirk. “Just the ones I meet in dreams~”

“And in porn,” Kibum says, totally un-amused. “You’re not allowed to watch that in front of Taeminnie, by the way.”

“I don’t care,” Taemin tells them both.

He wriggles away from Kibum, fire climbing so high in his skin he can barely see straight, but he makes it one step before Kibum grabs his hand. The one still holding his phone. Taemin lets Kibum take it from him dumbly, then watches as he leans across him to stow it in his locker, burying it underneath his clothes, out of sight. Some part of Taemin wishes he could hide in there with it, and his heart drops at the sound of the lock clicking shut. It weighed him down all day, but his legs feel even heavier, walking over to where Jinki and Minho are already going through their stretches, Kibum and Jonghyun’s laughter carrying across the room as his butt hits the floor. Jinki shoots him a smile that Taemin has to fight to return, but what’s the point, when Jinki will be able to tell it’s fake in a second anyway.

“When do you think they’ll give us our song?” Taemin asks.

They’ve burned through so many covers these past two months. Kibum’s started saying they should have just cloned TVXQ rather than make the five of them suffer, but Jinki has it the worst of any of them, and he’s never joked about it.

“When we’re good enough, I guess,” he says. “Don’t ask me when that’ll be.”

They all keep telling Taemin so many things, what to do, what to say, what he’s supposed to think, but whenever he asks a question, no one can ever answer it.

“Just focus on your stretches, Taemin-ah, don’t half-ass it,” Minho tells him now.

“You too, hyung.”

Another thing that just shoots out of him before he can bite it back, but it’s okay, he turns back to Jinki quick enough that instead of a pinch on the cheek and a lecture on why he should listen, he gets another smile. When he braces his feet against Jinki’s and reaches over to take his hands, it widens, but as soon as Taemin pulls and Jinki feels the burn, it’ll disappear.

“Let’s do well today, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin doesn’t know how he does, but he lasts until the first break, then the next one. This time he’s smart enough to get up to go to the bathroom, rather than sit through Jonghyun and Kibum’s back-and-forth, Minho’s silence and Jinki’s second death scene, sprawled face down on the floor. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have to go. No one follows him so he doesn’t have to pretend, or even go into the bathroom when he finally reaches it, two floors down. They’ve been secluded in a practice room on the top floor, so far but so close to the places Taemin spent the last three years of his life. Jongin is probably down here by now, right? School must have let out already. Taemin’s feet carry him towards the practice room they always used like it’s still months ago, steps echoing down the empty hallway, bursts of music from dance practice and murmur leaking out of vocal rooms, until, “It should have been you, hyung,” shoots out at him from the door on his left.

Taemin freezes.

“There’s no should with these things.” Junmyeon’s voice. “That’s the first thing you have to learn. You’ll go crazy if you think like that.”

“Not as crazy as SM is,” the other boy says. Taemin trained with him for who knows how long, but he doesn’t know his name. “Does Director-nim hate you or something?”

“He’s the one who told me to stay,” Junmyeon replies. “He said it wasn’t my time yet.”

Taemin doesn’t need to hear this. It’s done. It’s over with. Junmyeon is right, there’s no should, except that he shouldn’t be listening, his feet shouldn’t have stopped working, he should just go—

“Then how is it Taeminnie’s? He can’t even sing.”

He knew that was coming, but Taemin can’t stop his stomach from opening up, his mouth going bone dry, and even as his legs lock up his heart is going crazy, hammering in his chest like it wants out.

“That’s not all it’s about, come on,” Junmyeon says. _Otherwise Taeminnie never would have been picked._

“The first couple months I spent here, I thought he couldn’t even talk,” someone else says. There are three people saying it, but everyone Taemin left behind down here is thinking it. “Can you imagine him going on TV?”

Taemin can’t. He’s been going to speaking lessons for months and somehow he hadn’t even thought that far ahead, it was always surviving the next one, the next time he got called on, the next time Minho volunteered him to go first, the next joke Kibum cracked to make him forget his nerves, the next time Jonghyun laughed and twisted them up tighter instead. How is he so stupid? And why won’t his stupid fucking legs work.

“I feel sorry for Jonghyun hyung, having to babysit him some more.”

_I never followed him around, he followed me._ The feeling inside Taemin crushes those words into dust. _I never asked him to take care of me, he just did._

“It’s Taeminnie I feel sorry for,” Junmyeon says. “SM is basically saying they gave up on him.”

What?

One of them scoffs. “He’s debuting, hyung. If that’s giving up on him then I want them to give up on me too.“

“He’s never going to improve, that’s what all the instructors are saying. He’d be just as good at dancing a few years from now, and he could have trained his voice. Instead he’ll spend his career lucky to get a line or two. He won’t have school to fall back on, either.”

“I guess he won’t be as cute in a few years,” one of them agrees slowly. He sighs, shoes squeaking across the floor, voice drifting further away while Taemin stands rooted to the spot. “At least those hyungs will take good care of him. They picked all the nicest ones, training is going to be hell from now on.”

The music blasts on.

When Taemin’s legs carry him back up to the practice room, Jonghyun wants to know, “Where did you go?”

If Taemin says nowhere Jonghyun will just ask again. He only has to get one word out either way, so who cares anyway. “Bathroom.”

Jonghyun’s eyes narrow. “For that long?”

Taemin steps past him, dropping down next to Jinki again. If he asked him how he can still smile after the day he’s had so far, maybe Jinki would teach him, instead of trying to drag one out of him by saying stupid stuff like, “Should we eat something spicy for dinner~?”

Taemin doesn’t need help pooping, if that’s what the thinks. And hot food never gets him to cry.

“Tell me where you’re going next time, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun says. “I almost went to look for you, you were almost late.”

“I wasn’t.”

Two words. That’s twice as hard. If he tried to say, _I don’t want to talk right now,_ he might not make it all the way through.

“Don’t go hang out with Jonginnie on break, Taemin-ah, you never keep track of time,” Kibum cuts in. “Just get his number, even that’s safer.”

“I’m not dumb, I’ve been coming here longer than you,” Taemin’s voice says.

“Aigoo.” Kibum laughs, scooting closer, but he’s not like Jonghyun or Minho, no pinching or tickling or anything that might make it hard for Taemin to keep breathing. Just, “Did you two get in a fight or something? Make up with him, Taemin-ah. Otherwise you’ll just add to your stress.”

Jonghyun told him once he shouldn’t even know that word. He’s only finding out now, but he really didn’t, back then. He had no fucking idea what it meant, if that’s what this is, this feeling that has his chest caving in, his throat closing up, his eyes pricking with tears. He swallows. Blinks. Puts his head down. Breathes.

“I didn’t even find him.”

“So you just lied to me, in other words,” Jonghyun says, laughter rising up in his voice, sharp and ragged.

“I looked in the bathroom.”

“It’s not funny, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun snaps. “It’s not like before, you can’t just do whatever you want.”

“When did I ever do that? You always bossed me around.”

“What?”

_Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk. If I talk I might cry, but I’m not going to. I’m not. If I can’t improve, I can’t get worse either._

“I said don’t boss me around,” comes out of him. “Just because I’m the maknae doesn’t mean you guys get to tell me what to do.”

He doesn’t have to look at Jonghyun until practice starts up again and Ssaem is back to telling them to watch each other in the mirror, and whatever look he put on his face is long gone by then. He only has to avoid his own eyes, because he doesn’t know what he’ll see. The feeling inside him is still growing.

It’s almost midnight when Taemin gets dropped off in front of his building. The first time the hyung from the company drove them home, Jonghyun offered to get off with Taemin and walk the rest of the way up to his house, but the hyung told him he had to watch him go in. Which means both him and Jonghyun watch as Taemin punches in the passcode and the gate clangs open. He only hears the van sputter off as he climbs up the stairs, and by the time he has to remember the passcode to their apartment, it’s long gone, and he’s finally alone.

The light flickers on in the entryway as Taemin kicks off his shoes, and he looks up to find Mom staring across the hallway at him. It takes her another second to smile at him. How long would it take Taemin to smile back?

“Are you hungry, Taemin-ah?” she says.

Taemin is going to say no, right up until, “Mm,” rises in his throat. His feet move on their own, carrying him into the kitchen when he should walk right past it to his bedroom. That lady from the program has started weighing them every day now, and she’s threatened to do it morning and night if Jinki doesn’t lose weight faster. But Taemin never gains any, no matter how much he eats, and nothing he had all day has tasted like food.

Mom herds him towards the table, offering, “I can make tteokbokki.”

Taemin shakes his head, and by the time his butt hits the chair, she’s already whisked away to stand in front of the refrigerator, stacking Tupperware in her arms, so many she has to tuck it under her chin as she returns to him. He’s barely snapped the top off the first one when she’s back with chopsticks and a bowl of rice. As she sinks down next to him a lump rises up in his throat, the last few slices of tamagoyaki from this morning staring up at him. He fumbles for his chopsticks, picking one up and stuffing it in his mouth. Fluffy and salty and sweet, even better cold than it would have been right out of the frying pan.

“Sorry I didn’t call,” he gets out somehow.

“Aigoo. I knew you’d forget.” She pinches his cheek, shooting him a smile as she reaches over to open up more of the Tupperware. All Taemin’s favorites. “Your dad and brother went to bed already, but I like staying up. Everything’s different at night.”

Including this room? She probably spent all day in here making these, and she probably sat there for hours, waiting. Even if she knew him enough to know he’d disappoint her, she still got disappointed.

“Kibum hyung said they’d take it away.”

“What away?” Mom says easily, reaching up to pick rice off his cheek.

“If they saw, they’d take it away.” _The phone you told me to keep with me. The phone Dad spent his paycheck on._ “You can just give it to Taewoo, he’ll use it.”

“Just don’t let them see, then,” Mom says, like it’s that simple. “Hmmm?”

She takes up his spoon, digging into the Tupperware nearest her and laying radish kimchi on his rice. She could just get store bought, but whenever she did in the past, Taemin always refused to eat it. He was too young back then for him to even remember now, but she said he could always tell.

Where did that kid go? Now he can’t tell anything from anything. If his next breath will come out as a sob, if that’s salt and soy sauce, or the taste of his own tears, if it’s those hyungs' words ricocheting around his head, or if these thoughts have been in there since before he knew to look for them. If he’s always alone these days, or if he never is. If he was always this bad at everything, or if he’s getting worse. If this is his life, or if he’s stealing it from someone else.

He’s lived for it for three years. He can’t say this. He can’t. What if he can’t take it back? He can’t he can’t he can’t—

“I don’t want to debut.”

“What?”

It's only Mom. Taemin takes a deep breath, digging his spoon into his rice with numb fingers, but he’s back to not tasting anything, and, “I don’t want to be stuck like this,” comes out of him, along with the last four months of his life, tears and snot and voice breaking, everything breaking, and he has to swallow somehow or he’ll choke. “I’ll be stuck like this forever. I can’t do it, Mom.”

This time when Mom tries to hug him he jerks away, but she tries again, folding him into her arms, holding him close, soft and warm and there, telling him stuff that makes no sense like, “No one’s making you,” and, “You don’t have to, Taeminnie, shhhh,” and, “I’ll talk to the director, we’ll figure something out, it’ll be okay.”

None of that has anything to do with anything, and all it does is make him cry harder, shaking and blinded with tears, voice buried so deep under gasps and sobs and then when he tries to swallow those back, hiccups. When he finally gets it out, it sounds like nothing he’s heard, and he can’t keep back the words that came up with it.

“I can’t do anything. People tell me what to do and I can’t even do it. I can’t be a singer.” Taemin’s insides twist up so tight his voice bursts. “I can’t sing.”

“Taemin-ah?”

Dad. His hand lands on Taemin’s head, so big and warm everything just hurts more. Taemin is almost sixteen and he can’t stop crying and he woke Dad up he was so loud. It’s way too late, he can’t take it back, he can’t pretend he’s a good son anymore, especially when he wrenches away from Mom, burying his head in his arms, blocking them both out. Their voices rush in and out, Taewoo’s too, _What’s wrong with Taeminnie? It’s just stress, Taewoo-yah. It’s more than that, honey, it’s too much for him. I’m going to call them. _

Call who?

Three years of his life. He can cry until his body is out of water, but he’ll never get them back, and if he doesn’t get his head up right now, it’s all going to end here. His whole life, over.

“This is Taeminnie’s mother, I’d like to speak with someone. The Director, please. Could you put him on? Thank you. Director-nim? Hello, I’m very sorry for calling so late.”

His chair screeches back as he forces himself to his feet, and as soon as he rubs the tears out of his eyes there are more, blinding him, blurring Mom and Dad and Taewoo out. It feels like they’re a million miles away, but it takes maybe one step before Dad’s hand lands in his hair and Taewoo’s pats his back, and then the next time he can see, Mom is right there. He made it, now he has to say something. Anything.

“Why did you call them?” Except that, that’s useless. “Don’t, Mom.”

“You don’t have to debut now, Taeminnie, you can wait until you’re ready,” Dad says, just as Mom lays her hand over the mouthpiece to reassure him, “Mom is talking to them, don’t worry.”

Did she tell them he cried? Is crying? 

“It just came out like that, I’m fine, you don’t need to.”

“It’s okay, Taemin-ah.”

It’s not. He’d rather die. He’s okay with never being okay ever again, if that’s what it takes. He can’t do this, but what else could he do? Nothing. He’d be nothing. Taemin scrubs at his eyes, swallowing everything back. Takes one long shuddery breath, so deep his lungs hurt more than everything else inside him put together.

“I’ll do it. I’ll debut. I don’t want him to know, don’t tell him I cried, it just came out.”

Mom’s features give, just a little, before the phone crackles in her ear. Director-nim.

“Yes, that was Taeminnie.” She covers the phone again. “Would you like to talk to him?” She reads it in his face in half a second, and he’s too slow to stop her from telling the director what she saw, but then Director-nim sends her eyes back to his face. A second chance she’d rather die than give him. “He says he’d like to talk to you. We can go in to see him again tomorrow, Taemin-ah. Let’s do it that way, okay? Mom and Dad will be there.”

They’re here now. And so is Taemin.

He takes the phone from her.

Director-nim tells him all the things they already went over that day they met, tells him again and again and again, and he won’t let Taemin hang up until he says he understands. Taemin lies and says he does. When Taemin gets up the next day, his head is no clearer and his body is no lighter for all the tears he shed. He’s stiffer and sorer than he was the day before, too slow to dodge Mom’s kiss, even if he’d tried. Avoiding her eyes is even harder, somehow, and looking at her, harder still. So he doesn’t, just stuffs his face with rice and lets her pet his hair, then gets up and lets Taewoo walk him to the bus stop. At school, he puts his head down and lets the kids say whatever they want about him. He doesn’t give any of the pens the pens they throw at him back, either, and when it’s time for the driver from the program to pick him up, he leaves them littered like missiles on the floor around his desk for Sunsaengnim to find.

Once he’s there, though, he's back to having to try. It’s that or die. Two hours cramming Chinese into his head, and then another hour of speaking lessons to empty everything else in it out, and then, finally, practice. Hours and hours and hours of it, the whole time trying not to let Jonghyun catch his eye. Everyone besides Taemin and Minho already survived through a morning session, but Jinki is drenched in sweat again within five minutes, and if Taemin’s muscles feel like they’re breaking down, his are probably mush by now. Ssaem shows no mercy either way, pointing out every single tiny mistake each of them makes, reprimanding them for falling out of sync, going over the same points over and over and over, until finally the song ends and he clicks it off before it can restart.

“Take thirty minutes,” he says. “I’ll be in the staff room if you need me, okay?”

The one thing Taemin knows is that he would rather die than spend another second in the practice room. His feet carry him over to the door before it can slam shut behind Ssaem, and after a day of not looking and not hearing and not feeling, it’s so much easier to ignore his stomach twisting as Jonghyun calls after him, “Where are you going, Taemin-ah? Yah, Taemin-ah, we talked about this. Taemin-ah!”

It’s a lot harder to make it up to the roof, though, and once he’s hunkered down on the cement, he has all the time in the world to regret it, cold numbing his face, biting into his fingertips, exploding in his lungs.

_You keep asking me that, hyung. I’ll tell you when I know._

Suddenly the whole world goes black as something big and warm and soft is thrown over his head. A jacket.

_Hyung._

Taemin’s heart squeezes down to nothing as he pulls it back down, and by the time he can see again, Jonghyun is there, squatting down beside him, still in his hoodie. He’s told Taemin a million times he likes the cold, though, and he watches Taemin until he’s slipped his arms into the sleeves and lost his fight with the zipper, wrapping it around himself and holding it closed instead.

“You were expecting Jinki hyung, huh,” Jonghyun accuses him, like Taemin just came up here so that someone would follow him. He should have known Jonghyun would. He sinks deeper into his coat, but it’s impossible to hide his smile from Jonghyun, especially when Jonghyun tries for a laugh and goes on, “You think he could make it up that many stairs? We’ll see if he can even get up again.”

When Taemin left him he looked exactly how Taemin feels inside, lying spread-eagled on the practice room floor with the last half year piled on top of his chest. Maybe it’s not any easier to breathe up here than it was down there, but still. “I wanted fresh air.”

“Next time open a window. Hm?” Jonghyun doesn’t even want an answer, he just wanted an excuse to pinch Taemin’s cheek, but it barely hurts, and on another day, it’d just make Taemin smile again. Jonghyun presses his shoulder into Taemin’s. “You meant you wanted to be alone, right? Too bad.”

It’s fine, if it’s him. He has to know that by now. Maybe he would, if Taemin had ever told him.

“Sorry I was mean to you,” Taemin says painfully.

“You mean yesterday?” Jonghyun leans in to catch his eye, teetering on the balls of his feet. Before he loses his balance, Taemin lifts his head. “Don’t tell me that, tell me what’s wrong. You only get mad at me when you’re mad at yourself.”

_It shouldn’t have been me. It should have been Junmyeon hyung. He’s your friend, hyung, you would know._

“I never thought I’d make it so I didn’t think about who else would,” Taemin says instead. “Besides you and Jinki hyung, but that’s obvious. It’s weird when there’s just five of us.”

Weird is just the shortest word to describe it. Too quiet, too loud, too empty, all those things. There’s no way they can fill the space where Jongin and Moongyu and Junmyeon and all the other hyungs used to be. Taemin has nowhere to hide, either, not from the others or Ssaem or his own reflection.

“When it’s just you and me it’s still the same, though.” The sound of Jonghyun’s voice cuts right through all that, somehow, and the look on his face cuts right through Taemin. “I was really happy when I learned we’d debut together.”

Taemin shouldn’t have to turn away to say it back, he should be telling Jonghyun and not the grey endless sky, “I was too.”

“But not anymore, huh.”

What? Before Taemin can even think, “Did SM tell you guys I cried?” comes shooting out of him, and his eyes snap back up in time to watch that hit Jonghyun’s face. It’s too late it to take it back, and maybe it’s okay if there’s no way to make Jonghyun forget. He’s cried in front of Taemin before, and it’s not like Taemin is about to cry now. And his ears were probably already red from the cold, he won’t even know he’s blushing.

Jonghyun’s hand lands on top of his head, still so warm when Taemin’s skin is on fire. “I won’t tell the others.”

“Mom is the one who went and called Director-nim.”

“She’s worried about you, Taeminnie. She’s probably not ready for you to debut, either, that’s like losing her child,” Jonghyun says, putting Taemin right back where he started, so gently Taemin can’t even hate him for it, not even a little.

“The whole time they were making cuts, I thought of so many reasons why they wouldn’t pick me,” he says. “Those didn’t go away when they did. I’m too young. I can’t sing. I won’t get any better at it, either.”

Jonghyun’s hand slips out of his hair to raise his chin, holding Taemin’s eyes as soon as they meet his.

“That’s up to you, Taeminnie. Not SM or whoever told you that.”

“What if they were right, hyung?” Taemin gets out. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Jonghyun just narrows his eyes at him again, that look that means he thinks he’s caught Taemin in a lie.

“When we first met, you told me you’re not how you look. I know you well enough by now not to listen to you.” His other hand comes up to cup Taemin’s face, so much warmer for the cold. Taemin could pull away, but instead he sits still and lets Jonghyun squish his cheeks, lets him smile at how ugly he’s made Taemin, until finally he releases him with one last pat on the head. And then he lets Jonghyun say, “You’re beautiful inside and out, Taemin-ah. That’s why they picked you, and that didn’t go away either.”

Taemin doesn’t know what he’s supposed to tell Jonghyun, just that, “I don’t need you to say stuff like that, I’m not thirteen anymore,” wasn’t it.

Otherwise Jonghyun wouldn’t be shaking his head at him. “You never wanted to hear it back then, either.” It’s not like he thinks Jonghyun is lying to him or something, when he knows better than anyone that he wouldn’t. It’s just that he can’t see the Taemin Jonghyun can, no matter how hard he looks. And he could probably sit here until he froze to death and still, he’d never find a way to tell Jonghyun that without Jonghyun telling him something like, “When you were thirteen, you were already working harder than anyone I knew. And you were a better dancer than I am now. When you’re my age, maybe you’ll be a better singer too~”

“That’s impossible.” Taemin has spent the last three years of his life following and looking at Jonghyun’s back. If he ever got in front of him, what would he even see? Taemin leans back on his hands, tipping his face up to watch the clouds. “I don’t want to be better than you, anyway.”

Of all things Jonghyun laughs and says, “You’re letting hyung have something? Aigoo, thank you,” reaching up to press his thumb into Taemin’s cheek again. And just like that, the smile from before is fighting its way back onto Taemin’s face. 

“When we make a lot of money, you can buy me lots of food.”

And Taemin will buy Taewoo a phone. Dad, too, for work. And Mom.

Jonghyun throws him a look that’s all for show. “I already do.”

Taemin should probably feel sorry about that, but it would kill Jonghyun if he did. Just like it’d kill him if Taemin told him how cold he looks, huddling next to Taemin, hugging his knees to his chest as the wind picks up. If Taemin got up and went back inside, back into the warmth, Jonghyun would follow in a heartbeat, but that’d mean going back to their lives. Ssaem said thirty minutes. It’s okay if they stay just a little longer.

“Taemin-ah.”

“What?”

Jonghyun grinds his shoe into the cement, glancing up to catch Taemin looking. “You know I don’t just say things to say them, right?”

Sometimes it feels like the only thing Taemin knows. Some part of him is dying to look away, hide in Jonghyun’s coat, climb to his feet, but he stays frozen in place. “Mm.”

“You can improve,” Jonghyun tells him. “I don’t know who said you couldn’t, but I’m saying you can. It’s up to you who you want to listen to.”

For several long moments Taemin struggles with himself, but in the end he’s stuck with, “It’s not that simple.”

“I’m not saying it won’t be hard. It will be, it’ll be way harder than everything we did to get here.” He stands clumsily, legs probably numb with cold, but his eyes stay fixed on Taemin’s face, shining down at him. “Until you can believe in yourself, believe me.”

When he offers his hand to pull Taemin up, Taemin takes it.


	13. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently got a Twitter account (same username), so if any of you guys ever want to chat about Jongtae or Shinee on there, I would be happy to! Although I'm really terrible at social media and mostly just lurk haha. Anyway, whenever I've had to stop writing fic to focus on school/work I've left an A/N on the latest chapter, but in the future I'll try and tweet about it instead, so if I go silent for a long time, you can always check there. (Also, just in case - I'm an adult!)

Taemin’s suitcase weighs a million pounds. Mom didn’t let him pack it himself. He just came home last night to find it stuffed to bursting and tucked away in his newly empty closet, no clothes left for it to hide behind. Taewoo told him at breakfast that Mom had made him sit on it just to get it closed, and now it’s taking all of Taemin’s strength to lug it towards the steps.

He doesn’t say anything. It’s taking all of Mom’s not to cry.

“I’ll go through your room one more time today just to check and make sure.”

“If he forgot anything, we can just bring it over to him,” Taewoo says. He takes the suitcase from Taemin at the head of the stairs, leaving Taemin to follow behind him as he groans and bangs his way down. “This thing weighs more than you.”

“I wish I could put everything away for you,” Mom goes on heedlessly, before she throws Taemin a look. “Hang it all up in the closet like we talked about. Don’t leave it on the floor after you’ve worn it, either.”

They went to see the dorm together with Jonghyun and his mom last week in Apgujeong. It looked so fancy from the outside that Taemin almost wanted to turn back around, and somehow it only got worse once they were inside. Mom kept close the whole time, pointing every little thing out to him, then asking the staffer showing them around about it. Taemin didn’t hear anything she said. All he knows is the things the company have said all of the million times they’ve talked to his parents about the dorm.

“They said an ahjumma would come in to cook and clean.”

Mom narrows her eyes at him. “That means you have even less of an excuse, Taeminnie. What if you were her, would you want to pick up after you?”

“What about you? You never even got paid to do it.”

Taemin says it without thinking, which is probably the only way he would have gotten the words out. He picks up speed, clattering down the last few steps and catching up to Taewoo in time to get the gate for him, but he can’t outrun the lump in his throat, and once they’re outside, he’s stuck. It’s not like the bus. The van will pick him up right here.

“I should have charged you fees,” Mom says. She forces a smile. It looks like it hurts. “It’s still not too late.”

Only one more night. Taemin swallows hard, scuffing his shoe across the pavement, staring down at it. He’s just like he was that day, back to looking without seeing, hearing without listening. When he lives in the dorm for good, he’ll probably do better. He has to.

“When I start making money, you can have all of it,” he says out loud. Somehow.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Taemin-ah,” Mom says. And then, voice brighter than the sun pinking the horizon, “Pay up~”

Taemin catches on quick enough to dodge her, but he lets her fold him into his arms instead, lets her squeeze him tight enough to crush the feeling inside him, but nothing changes, and when she lets him go, it’ll only get worse.

Taewoo shoots Taemin a smile over her shoulder, asking in the dumbest voice he has, “Do you think Minsoo hyung could give me a ride to school, too?”

Minsoo hyung. The manager SM hired to look after Taemin and the hyungs. Right now that means hanging around all day while they practice and driving them everywhere they have to go. Taewoo wouldn’t like that. At least Taemin hates it. Some kids have their parents drive them to school, but whenever the van rolls up, they all stop to watch as he gets out. A hundred eyes follow him into the building, and there’s a girl that follows him all the way up to his classroom now, too. He never even knew she existed until now. She probably didn’t know about him, either.

Taemin can feel Mom shaking her head at Taewoo. “Mom will walk you to the bus stop~”

She reaches for him, ignoring his squawk of protest and pulling him into a hug, the three of them squished together like they haven’t been since Taemin was like five. He hugs them back.

Breathes. Shuts his eyes as tight as he can.

All that means is that he hears the van before he sees it, engine guttering as it pulls up to a stop. Seven a.m. sharp, just like every single day for the past month. Mom gives him one last squeeze, presses a kiss into his hair Taemin can’t even find the voice to call gross, and then shuttles him towards the door as it rolls back, while Taewoo drags his suitcase over to the trunk. He watches them through his window until they shrink out of sight, before turning to peer out the windshield instead. Minsoo hyung is as silent as ever, slouched over the steering wheel, cheek hollowed around another one of the hard candies from the bag he keeps on the dash. Minho never has anything to say, either, leaning against his own window, arms crossed. None of the others have school anymore, ever since Jinki passed his last exam. 

As Minsoo hyung takes the corner, Taemin’s suitcase rattles in the back. Taemin asks his back, “Are we stopping by the dorm when we get out?”

“It can wait until tomorrow night. Doesn’t look like there’s much to unpack.”

Just clothes.

“Kibum will take up the whole closet by himself, anyway,” Minho says. His stuff was already there when Taemin and Jonghyun went to look. Jonghyun dragged Taemin straight past the bunk beds and rifled through it with him while the fact that they’d all be stuck in one room sank in, telling him, _Take whatever you want, Taeminnie~. Kibummie won’t even notice._ Minho’s smile is the same now as Jonghyun’s was, broad and shit eating. “Do we have to call him Key all the time, or just in public?”

Minsoo hyung either doesn’t think it’s funny or doesn’t care. He grunts, “Just in public.”

“Still, I should probably get used to it,” Minho says, before his smile widens and he turns back to his window. “He should too~”

Kibum hates it. He figured getting a stage name was inevitable since there was a Kim Kibum in Super Junior, and he was fine with that, at least until he heard it would be Key. Lee Sooman seonsaengnim picked it for him himself, but all he can say about it is, _My parents are at fault for naming me Kibum, not me. Why am I the one being punished?_ That and, _Jinki hyung’s is nice. Is something like Onew too much to ask for someone like me?_

Taemin still isn't used to either of them, not even after the lady from the program started scolding them every time someone forgot and said their real names in practice interviews, but they’re not that bad. What he can’t get past is their group name. Nothing is final yet, not until the company says so, even if this name has stuck for two weeks longer than any of the others, but he thinks he’d rather die than introduce himself as SM Five Taemin. Even that’s better than The Kiddies. That one lasted for three days of Kibum swearing up and down he’d quit if it didn’t change, before Minsoo hyung told them the new one. He was just saying that, but it’s not something Taemin can just say ever again, not after the night he cried. Someone might listen to him the way Mom did. He might listen to himself.

Taemin only realizes they’ve reached Minho’s school when his hand lands on his head, ruffling his hair as he tells him, “See you, Taemin-ah. Don’t sleep through class,” and then it’s down to just Taemin and Minsoo hyung, and all Taemin has left to do is lean against his window and close his eyes and wait for the silence to settle in. Which it never does. The closer they get, same as always, his mouth grows dry and his nerves burn up and his stomach churns. When the van lurches to a stop finally, Taemin goes for his seatbelt on automatic.

“I already told Minho, but I’ll be back for you at ten today instead of twelve,” Minsoo hyung says instead of goodbye. Taemin nods dumbly, reaching for the door handle. “You aren’t going to ask why?”

There aren’t that many things Taemin could guess. Practice, Chinese lessons…

“Media training?”

“The Performance Director is coming around with a choreographer,” Minsoo hyung tells him.

Oh.

Taemin’s heart stops, then kicks in double time, hammering against his ribs. “They picked our song?”

“Mm.”

_Finally._

It’s called “Replay.” Half the things the performance director uses to describe it are in English and mean nothing to Taemin. He thought the song would mean everything, but it’s just that. Just a song.

The choreographer isn’t just a choreographer. Taemin has danced to hundreds of other artists’ songs, taught himself all the steps from YouTube videos or learned from Ssaem here, but he’s never met a real one in his life. Rino’s also the first adult who’s ever told him to call her by her first name. Taemin thinks he’ll die before he gets it out, but he’d have to remember how to talk at all first.

The choreography isn’t just choreography, either. The first time Rino walks them through it, he can’t remember anything by the time the song is over, and the second and third are worse somehow. He is.

And he has a dance solo.

Kibum saves up all his fake outrage for their first break, dropping down next to Taemin on the floor with a dramatic, “Show off.” He breaks into a smile at the look on Taemin’s face, petting his hair. “Go, Taeminnie go.”

“He’s still in shock,” Jinki says from his other side, ruffling his hair. “When she said dance solo, I thought I would get it, too~”

“It’s because Taeminnie practices twice as hard as the rest of us,” is the first thing Minho has said in hours, but Jonghyun corrects him in under a second:

“It’s because it’s Taeminnie.”

_It’s because it’s me that I keep fucking it up. That’s why I practice so hard, hyung._

Mom would say, _Do your best, Taemin-ah. Try as hard as you can._

It’s the most important day of his life since the day SM picked him to debut, but somehow he has to try so hard just to try at all.

He gets up again and the day drags on. First the performance director leaves, and then finally Rino does too, and it’s down to just Ssaem. And Minsoo hyung. He camps out in a corner of the practice room with his book, stuck in the corner of Taemin’s eye in the mirror. Most of the steps aren’t as difficult as some of the things they learned for training evals, which doesn’t explain why they all keep making mistakes they never would have made before. Ssaem is harder on them than he’s ever been, and by lunch Jinki is longing for Rino to come back and teach them instead. Taemin doesn’t tell him they’re better off this way, not in the least because that would mean talking, and he’s having a hard time with that. The harder they dance, the less he has to think about it, heart pounding so fast that everything inside it starts to blur. He lives and dies on a three minute thirty-six second loop, ending and beginning and ending and beginning as last few notes of “Replay” fade into the opening beats. It doesn’t matter if every time his solo comes around he hates his own reflection even more, if Ssaem’s eyes on him weigh a million pounds with every tiny movement he makes, if he fucks up ten times more on his own than he does once he fades back into the group, as long as he’s not in his head. As long as he's not thinking _I can’t do this_ or _nothing I do is ever right_ or _I want to go home._

He just has to make it until tomorrow and then he’ll never be able to think that again. He only makes it up until Minsoo hyung’s phone rings. When he comes back, he pulls Ssaem aside first, giving them all a free pass to mess up for the next minute, until Minsoo hyung turns to them instead. He has to go. Suju’s manager came down with some kind of flu and he has to cover for them. Variety. Overnight filming. Won’t be back until tomorrow morning.

“I still have time to take you home if you want to go early.”

No one says anything until Kibum tells him, “He means you, Taemin-ah.”

“I’m fine.”

“Go on, Taemin-ah,” Ssaem says, reaching over to scrub his hand through Taemin’s hair. Back when they first met, he barely had to lift his hand to do it, Taemin had so far left to grow. “If they catch up to you tonight, you’ll get ahead of them again tomorrow.”

He’s saying that like Taemin isn’t slower at learning dances than Kibum. Even Minho. He’s so fucking slow. How can it take him so long to come up with words they’ll believe?

“I don’t need to, I’m fine. I used to stay over night all the time, just ask Jonghyun hyung.”

It comes out of his mouth without thinking, but in the time it takes for him to catch himself, Ssaem barely reacts beyond sighing, “Aigoo,” and pinching his cheek. Back then there were still rules like that to break. Now there are different ones. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t talk to anyone. Work harder. Stay longer. Do better. Taemin is trying. That’s all he can do.

Jonghyun doesn’t react, either. At least not to that. Instead he begins in this weird voice, “Taeminnie—”

Taemin ignores him and goes to take his place again. There’s no more Minsoo hyung in the mirror now. One less thing to help him avoid his own eyes. The clock keeps ticking. Five. Dad is off work if his boss doesn’t feel like drinking. Six, seven, eight. Nine. Taewoo will be on his way home from hagwon, unless he and his girlfriend stop for snacks first. Ten. Even if he did, Mom will make him something while Dad’s boring drama about Sejong drones in the background. Ten thirty.

“Make sure you get some sleep tonight if you’re not going home,” Ssaem tells them all finally, another thing he never would have said in a million years just three months ago. “I won’t be any easier on you tomorrow.”

It’s worse with him gone somehow. Taemin’s mistakes get bigger and bigger and bigger and none of the others even say anything. When he trips over himself and careens into Minho, Minho just sets him back on his feet, and the next time the song dies, Jinki hobbles over to it before it can restart, saying loudly into the silence, “Let’s take a break. Hyung is about to fall over, I need to eat something. Or something.”

Something is more cold instant rice, and Taemin knows it’s because of him. Jinki would have kept going until he collapsed otherwise.

“If I’m hungry, you must be starving, Taemin-ah.” Kibum’s voice is as gentle as he is solid, pushing his shoulder into Taemin’s. “This is way too depressing. Let’s go to the convenience store. You can get whatever you want as you don’t share it with Jinki hyung.”

Taemin doesn’t know how to tell him it’ll all taste the same to him, but Minho cuts in anyway. “Isn’t it mean to eat it in front of him?”

“I guess we’ll have to leave him behind. Minho can stay, too.” Kibum returns Minho’s look with one of his own. “Someone has to let us back in.”

That’s right. It’s late enough for the doors to lock.

“Should we take the bus back, Taemin-ah? Like old times. If we hurry we can catch the last one.”

Jonghyun is sitting right across from him. All Taemin would have to do is look up and he could see the expression that goes with that voice, gentle and stupid on purpose. He quit school for this. He broke up with his girlfriend. Taemin can give up one night of his life, it’s not like he’ll never see his family again.

He keeps his head down and stuffs his mouth so full of rice he’ll sound weird no matter what. “If I wanted to I’d just go by myself, hyung.”

“We could stop at Dongdaemun,” Jonghyun tries bribing him.

For one moment Taemin is so frustrated with him he can’t see straight, but it passes in the blink of an eye, and then he’s back to hating himself instead. There’d be no point, anyway. Mom would cook him something if he just made it home. Even if it were one in the morning and she woke Dad and Taewoo up with the smell, she still would. She’d make enough for Jonghyun to have some, too.

Taemin pushes himself back up onto his feet. “We’d just get fat.”

His feet carry him all the way over to his locker. All the way over to his phone. He flips it open with numb fingers, half-wishing that it died while he wasn’t looking, but he’s never even turned it on, not since the day Mom gave it to him and told him, _Call if you’re going to be late._ It flickers to life in stages, then stares back up at him. Waiting.

Jonghyun takes it out of his hand. Taemin watches numbly as his fingers fly over the keys and he presses it to his ear. The first word Taemin understands is “taxi,” and the rest is a blur. SM’s address, his own, the click as he hangs up, Jonghyun’s hands helping him into his coat, then closing around his wrist, leading him out, down the hall and into the night. Jinki follows as far as the doors, where he stops to wait to let Jonghyun back in, and with one more pat on his head, Jinki’s voice telling him, “Think of hyung when you’re eating your mom’s cooking, Taemin-ah,” it’s down to just the two of them again.

The night they first went home together it was in the middle of summer, but tonight is way colder than February should be. When Taemin slides down the wall of the building and sinks onto the cement, it’s cold and damp and gross, but Jonghyun follows without hesitation, scooting over until they’re pressed together from shoulder to hip.

“I don’t want to say goodbye,” comes out of Taemin’s mouth. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“It’s not forever, Taemin-ah. And you have to say something.” Jonghyun’s eyes are burning into the side of his face. In a minute he’ll meet them. “It’s not just you. Think about how your mom would feel if you didn’t come home.”

Is Taemin the only one with a family?

“What about yours?”

“Working all night,” Jonghyun says. He clears his throat, voice wavering a little as he goes on, “We already said everything this morning.”

And just like that, Taemin’s heart is hurting so bad he can barely form words. He shouldn’t have asked, he shouldn’t be asking, “And your sister?”

Jonghyun smiles to himself, scuffing his shoe against the pavement. “She’s probably happy, she has the whole house to herself.”

That doesn’t sound anything like the noona Jonghyun has told him about, but even Taemin knows better than to tell him that. Still…

“Taewoo hyung acts like he’s not sad, so I just act like I’m dumb.”

Jonghyun’s smile widens instead of fading, and this time when he slots Taemin a look, Taemin lets himself be caught. His eyes are crinkling up, and his voice is as gentle as Taemin has ever heard it as he says, “But you’re not.”

Not all the time, at least.

“It’s not like I don’t understand.” All of the sudden Taemin’s throat is tightening again. If he just breathes for long enough, it’ll pass, but then the taxi might get here before he gets another word out. “I don’t want them to see me cry, either.”

Jonghyun’s hand lands on his head, so big and warm it makes everything a little worse and a little better. “You can in front of me. You know that, right?”

It’s only fair, considering Jonghyun has in front of him, but what comes out of Taemin’s mouth is, “It’s not you or them or anyone, it’s me. I don’t even like to do it by myself.”

“So you keep it in instead. You ever think that maybe that’s harder for the rest of us to watch?” For one long endless second, Taemin is terrified Jonghyun’s hand is going to slip down and turn him back around to meet his eyes again, but he keeps it in his hair, clumsy and gentle. “I know you well enough to know when something is wrong, Taeminnie. You don’t have to tell me, but I wish you would. I don’t like acting dumb, either.”

_You don’t tell me anything,_ Taemin doesn’t say. _And if I said anything you’d hate it. When you give me your food I’m not supposed to know you’re hungry too. When you pay for everything I’m not allowed to feel sorry, even now, even for the taxi. When you’re tired you still want me to lean on you. You made me put my coat on but you forgot yours. I know you’re cold, hyung. It’s freezing out._

Taemin lays his head on Jonghyun’s shoulder. Jonghyun barely even reacts, just barely stiffening in surprise, then relaxing into his side, arm coming up around his shoulders, squeezing him close. Taemin’s heart is the one that’s racing, even when he leans his weight into Jonghyun and closes his eyes and _breathes._

It doesn’t slow down until Jonghyun puts him in the taxi and circles back around to take down the license plate number, just in case something that never would happens. He’s so dumb, but still, Taemin cranes back, watching him until he’s out of sight, and so is SM.

The taxi takes a quicker route than the bus ever did, straight up to Taemin’s gate. Sure enough, Mom is waiting up in the kitchen when he gets home, and when Taemin asks for tteokbokki, she doesn’t even blink. The scent brings Taewoo stumbling out of his room, but with him there, the food is gone twice as fast, even if Taemin’s heart is so full he can barely find room for his share. Mom herds him off to bed before he can think of a single other excuse to stay up, and only then does time slow down. Taemin can’t sleep. His bedroom ceiling presses in on him and “Replay” spirals around and around in his head, even louder whenever he closes his eyes. Somehow after everything, he feels more alone lying in his own bed than he would have sprawled out next to Jonghyun and the other hyungs on the practice room floor.

_Nothing feels like goodbye, hyung. It doesn’t feel like anything. Or maybe it feels like too much?_

The sound of his door snicking open almost gives him a heart attack, before he sees who it is.

“Taewoo hyung?”

Taewoo shakes his head at him, shutting the door behind him and shuffling over to Taemin’s bed. “I thought you’d still be up.”

“You have school tomorrow,” Taemin reminds him stupidly as Taewoo flips his blanket back and burrows in next to him. Some part of Taemin is telling him to defend his territory, kick and push him until he lands on his butt on the floor, but instead he scoots back until his back hits the wall, making room.

“You don’t?”

It’s not a retort. Taewoo is really asking.

“I have practice,” Taemin says, shaking his head, before the weight of it hits him again, leaving him dizzy and tight chested. “They picked our song.”

“What’s it like?” Taewoo asks immediately. Taemin is still trying to come up with a way to describe it – happy? Sad? Both? – when Taewoo demands, “Hum it.”

That’s way too embarrassing, somehow.

“You’ll see.” Taewoo’s eyes narrow, which is all the warning Taemin gets before his hand tickles over Taemin’s side, but all that gets out of Taemin is this strange laugh-like thing. Normally Taewoo would keep it up until Taemin is wheezing, but he’s barely started when he stops, waiting for Taemin as he casts back to what Director-nim said and finds the breath to form those words for himself. “It’s mid tempo RnB. It’s really good. We’re learning our choreography. They all stayed in the practice room tonight, even Jinki hyung is probably way ahead of me by now. I’ll have to work hard to catch up.”

Taewoo is smiling at him. He’s being so weird.

“And then after that make sure you get some sleep,” he says. “Did you already pick which bed is yours?”

“Mm.”

Jonghyun picked it for him, probably so that he wouldn’t have to go last. It’s the bunk right under his. Jinki had first dibs and still chose the bed in the middle, the one Taemin was scared he would end up with.

“I always thought I’d move out first. You cut in front of me in line,” Taewoo says.

“You got to do everything else,” Taemin says.

“Not anymore. You’re done following me around, now you’re taking your own path. I guess you already were.” Taewoo reaches up to pet Taemin’s head, hand clumsy in the dark. When he opens his mouth again his voice comes out weird. “I’m proud of you, Taeminnie.”

Taemin’s throat closes up on him. Somehow he has to say this. “Take care of Mom. She keeps crying.”

Taewoo snorts, hair whispering against the pillow as he shakes his head at Taemin again. “Don’t worry about her, she cries over everything.”

Not like this. When it’s over dramas or movies or sad stories she hears on the news, she’s like a faucet, but when it’s something in real life, she always tries to hide it. This is the first time since Taemin can remember that she hasn’t been able to. Her eyes are red when she feeds him breakfast and her voice creaks sometimes when she talks to him, and all the kisses and hugs he’s put up with for the last few months haven’t done her any good. Maybe he should have dodged them all like normal, maybe that would have made her less sad. Maybe every time he didn’t, he just made her think of it.

“It’ll be a long time before we see each other again, hyung,” Taemin gets out. “Promise?”

“Okay, fine, I will. I would have anyway.” Taewoo’s huffiness is all for show. Taemin can see right through him, even when he makes a face at Taemin. “You two are the same. She kept asking Jonghyun hyung to take care of you, too.”

Taemin’s heart skips a beat, heat creeping into his face. “When?”

“Millions of times.”

Oh.

“You mean before I got picked?”

Back when Jonghyun walked him home every night. If he still did, he’d probably be sandwiched between Taewoo and Taemin right now, giving Taewoo tips about girls while Taemin rolled over and tried to forget that anyone would ever want to date either of them. But instead he’s miles away, curled up on the practice room floor, unless his legs haven’t given out on him yet.

“She’s always on the phone with his mom now.” She asked Taemin for their phone number over a year ago, but she got it before he did. Taewoo flicks the tip of Taemin’s nose, sending his eyes back up to his face. “Who’s cooler, me or hyung?”

What?

“It has to be one of you two?” Taemin hesitates for as long as he can keep the smile off his face, and then he hides his face in the pillow instead, saying into it, “Then Jonghyun hyung.”

Taewoo is supposed to laugh or hit him or something, not say in this weird in-between tone, “I won’t even ask who you like more. Just don’t replace me with him, okay?” What? Taemin emerges from the pillow in time to watch Taewoo roll over onto his back. He only needs another few seconds, eyes drilling holes into the ceiling, and then he says almost normally, “Like you said, it’s going to be a long time.”

What is Taemin supposed to say now? Jonghyun isn’t his real hyung, and Taemin isn’t his real dongsaeng. They’re not family, and no matter how close they get to each other, maybe they never can be. Jonghyun hyung is just Jonghyun hyung. There’s no other person in Taemin’s life he can compare him to, not even Jinki or Kibum.

“You’re both different, I don’t see you the same.” That much Taemin knows. That much has his face heating up, too. Before Taewoo can ask and he's left figuring out an answer, the first explanation he can think of flies out of him. “Hyung’s mom and noona baby him, that’s probably why he tries so hard with me.”

The first part's true, at least. The second might be. Taemin has never asked and all Jonghyun has ever told him is, _I never did anything for you because I had to. I did it because I like you._ Taemin waits for the tingling in his ears to fade, watching as the corner of Taewoo’s mouth tugs up into a smile, probably trying to imagine Jonghyun being treated the same way they all treat Taemin. Taewoo rolls back onto his side to face Taemin again. “What about the others?”

“You know how Kibum hyung is,” Taemin begins, before Taewoo cuts him short.

“I’ve only met him a few times.”

Taemin takes a minute to think about it. He thinks about Kibum swearing in Saturi and then refusing to teach Taemin any of it, giving him all his notes from middle school and telling him he’ll kill him if he doesn’t actually use them. The days he and Jinki used to sit up on the roof and Jinki would let him eat all his food and say things he couldn’t say to anyone else. Finally, slowly, he says, “Kibum hyung is bossy, but that’s just because he cares a lot. Jinki hyung just lets me do whatever I want. Minho hyung…” _is bossy, too_, Taemin almost says, before the silence of the last few weeks bring him up short. He’s maybe seen Minho more in the past few months than he did in all of his years training, but somehow Minho has said less. “He’s quiet.”

The only other thing Taemin knows about him is that he doesn’t know him. Not like the others, not yet.

“And your manager?” Taewoo prompts him.

Minsoo hyung?

“I don’t know. He’s okay, I guess.”

Taewoo laughs. “You guess?”

Taemin will see tomorrow morning. Taemin told Minsoo hyung he didn’t need a ride home, and now he’ll have to pick Taemin up again.

“He’s like Minho hyung, he doesn’t talk.” Taemin hesitates. “It’s just weird having someone watch you all the time. It’s not even like it is with teachers, that’s all he does. He always has to know where we are.”

“Sounds like the most boring job in the world,” Taewoo says without missing a beat. “When you guys have more to do besides practice, he will too.”

“He’s going to live in the dorm with us, too,” Taemin can’t stop himself from adding, even though Taewoo already knows. He probably sounds like he’s whining.

“It won’t be weird once you get to know him, Taemin-ah.” Taewoo pets his hair again, hand so big and warm, even as his expression starts to warp and his voice catches in his throat again. “Besides, you don’t want to know how much worse Mom would be if they let you guys live alone.”

_I wish I could just stay home._

Taemin rolls over to face the wall, curling himself into a tight ball and squeezing his eyes shut, trying to ignore the tears burning in the back of his throat and filling his chest. They won’t fall, not even if he lays here all night choking on them. They haven’t since that night in the kitchen.

“Taewoo hyung.”

Taemin shouldn’t have opened his mouth again, not if his voice was going to come out like that.

“Mm,” Taewoo grunts.

Taemin breathes. Breathes and breathes, until he can get out, “If he doesn’t take my phone away, I’ll ask for you when I call. Promise.”

“Then you promise to tell me if there’s something wrong.” Taewoo sounds just as bad. How were all those times he teased Taemin and they fought and argued over stupid things leading up to this? “Even if I can’t do anything, I won’t freak out like Mom. And I won’t tell her, either, I’ll just listen.”

“Even if it’s really bad?”

Taewoo only hesitates for a second to agree, “Mm,” but that’s long enough for Taemin not to believe him. Maybe it doesn’t matter if he does, though. He can hear Taewoo’s smile. “Don’t forget to say your prayers, either. Just because you get to skip church.”

Taemin says them now. For Mom and Dad and Taewoo, for Jonghyun and Kibum and Jinki and Minho, even for Minsoo hyung. For “Replay.” For himself.

_Please give me the strength not to cry tomorrow. If it’s the last time, I don’t want them to see me like that. I don’t want to make them worry. I’ll be fine._

_Please let me be fine._

Taemin wakes up with Mom’s hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. Taewoo comes out of the shower just in time for Taemin to go in, and for once there’s enough hot water left for Taemin to make it all the way through. Part of him wants to hide in the bathroom forever, but the rest of him runs on automatic, carrying him over to the breakfast table, the spot that’s been his ever since they first moved in here, and eating the food Mom loads onto his plate, all things she’s made him millions and millions of times, the taste he’s known all his life. Right now it tastes like nothing.

Like tears. 

Dad is still here. He’s not supposed to be. He’s going to be late to work if Taemin doesn’t hurry up and get this down, but that’s easier than trying to get out the words he spent all night coming up with will be. Mom talks enough to fill his silence and Taewoo makes faces at Taemin from across the table, and Dad keeps petting his hair like he’s checking to make sure he’s still there. Part of Taemin is longing to check everything for himself, too, burn it all into his brain, tattoo it on his eyelids, so that this is what he’ll see when he closes his eyes tonight. The unknown stain on the kitchen tile that Mom spent hours and hours trying to scrub away when they moved in. The picture of the grandparents he can’t remember in the hallway, and the picture of the ones he can by the TV. The TV, big and boxy and grainy. The blue walls of his bedroom. The cold spots on the floor where the heating doesn’t work. Their smiling faces.

When he goes to put his shoes on, he keeps his head down all the way, and his feet are so heavy he can barely lift them. But then that’s it. He’s out of excuses.

Taemin swallows everything back, then turns back around to face them. “I don’t need you guys to walk out with me.”

Mom’s mouth trembles, before she takes a deep breath, giving him a watery smile. “Mom has seen you cry a million times, Taeminnie, if that’s what you’re scared of. When you were a baby you barely let me sleep, there was always something.”

He’s scared if he starts again he won’t be able to stop this time.

“You’ve already cried enough for all of us,” Dad says in this scratchy voice. Taemin watches as Dad scrubs at his eyes, unable to look away, but then Dad smiles for him too, taking Taemin by the shoulders. Squeezing them. “Take it one day at a time, Taemin-ah. When they’re hard on you, don’t be hard on yourself. Don’t lose sight of who you are.”

And then Mom is there again, pulling Taemin into a bone-cracking hug. Taemin’s arms come up before he knows what’s happening, hugging her back.

“It might be a while before we can visit, but you’ll be too busy to miss us, anyway,” Taewoo says over her shoulder, before he clears his throat and looks away. “Remember our promise, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin squeezes Mom tight one last time, screws his eyes shut even tighter, and in the next moment he steps out of the circle of her arms. It takes everything he has inside him, all the years they raised him to prepare for this moment, but he smiles back.

And he says it.

“When I make enough money I’ll buy a house where we can all live together.”

By the time their door clicks shut he’s already halfway towards the stairs, but he doesn’t take his next breath until the gate slams behind him too, chest so tight and air so cold it feels like a knife between his ribs. He didn’t cry, he’s not going to cry, even now that he’s alone. Minsoo hyung will be here in another five minutes, and Taemin would rather die than let him see. If he doesn’t hurry up Dad will probably come down to his car in a minute, anyway, and then Taewoo only has a couple more before he has to start off for the bus stop, and just like that, this whole morning will have been for nothing.

What is there to cry about anyway? It’ll be a long time, but it’ll pass quickly, and for the first time in Taemin’s life, he’ll be able to give instead of take. He’ll find a place where there’s a washing machine and a balcony where Mom can grow plants instead of doing laundry, a garage where Dad can park instead of the street, the kind of view that will make Taewoo want to press his nose to the glass and stare endlessly, just like he and Taemin used to at Namsan Tower when they were little.

He’s turned back for one final look at the building he called home when he hears the van. It sounds like the one word none of them could say in the end.

Goodbye.

Minsoo hyung doesn’t say anything as he buckles up and glues his eyes to the windshield, blinking fast, not even to yell at him. As they round the corner and home disappears from view, he digs in his bag of candies for another one, then tips it towards Taemin silently. It takes Taemin forever just to fumble with the wrapper, and then the taste fills his mouth, bright red.

“When I asked, you should have gone home early,” Minsoo hyung says finally. He clears his throat. “If I’m asking, that’s because it’s okay. I don’t do anything the company doesn’t want me to do.”

“Sorry, hyung,” Taemin gets out. “I don’t know what he told you, but it was my idea, not Jonghyunnie hyung’s.”

“He showed me the license plate number of the cab. Which one of you made the call?”

“Hyung,” Taemin blurts out, before he catches his own mistake, heart flying up his throat. At least that means it’s still there, it’s not broken into tiny pieces, but his cell phone won’t be if he can’t come up with something quick. “With the company phone. The one downstairs.”

“You’re a bad liar, Taemin-ah.” Taemin’s stomach opens up, but Minsoo hyung doesn’t sound mad, and somehow he’s smiling at Taemin. Taemin didn’t even know he could. “Practice on me all you want, then maybe you’ll be able to fool the people paying me to watch you and I can quit.”

“Kibum hyung said you’d take it away.”

Minsoo hyung shakes his head at him. Taemin is safe. He’ll hear Mom and Dad and Taewoo’s voices again, he won’t have to wait until the next time he gets to see them.

“You won’t use it to talk to girls.” Minsoo hyung hesitates, and then his hand lands on Taemin’s head, big and heavy and clumsy. “Next time call me instead, I’m a lot cheaper than a cab. I’ll give you my number.”

For all Taemin knows, filming only wrapped up a few hours ago, meaning he was busy all night. They’ll be living together from now on, anyway.

It’s early enough that Seoul flies by. Dad might be at work already at this rate. Taewoo has probably reached the subway station. And Mom…

She’ll be alone all day.

Taemin swallows hard. Somehow looking at Minsoo hyung is easier than looking out the window, somehow talking is better than silence. “Are we the first group you managed?”

“Second,” Minsoo hyung grunts. “They disbanded a year into their contract, the company went belly up, and I landed here. “

Oh. Taemin should probably scared as he lets the possibility that could happen to them too sink in, but the first thing in his head is, _If that’s what happens I can just go back home._

“What was their name?” he makes himself ask.

“You wouldn’t have heard of them,” Minsoo hyung says, and he’s right. Taemin doesn’t recognize their name. Still…

“That’s cooler than SM Five.”

“Shiny.”

“What?”

“They changed it to SHINee,” Minsoo hyung says, before he catches the look on Taemin’s face and tries something he never does: explain. “The way Kibummie explained it to me, -ee means a person who receives something, and the first part is obvious. SHINee. Receiver of light.”

Shinee. Shinee Taemin. Taemin turns it over and over and over in his head, _shinee shinee shinee,_ almost scared to say it out loud, see if it sounds just as weird when he says it. If he waits for it to mean more to him than anything Minsoo hyung just said, more than just another name SM has given them, that might take years and years. He and Jonghyun and Kibum and Jinki and Minho have to make it their own.

“You don’t like that one either?” Minsoo hyung says, eyeing him.

“Did the others?”

Minsoo hyung shrugs, hedging, “They liked it better.”

Then Taemin does too.


	14. Graduation

When Taemin wakes up he can’t move. Reality slams into his body, sending his heart hammering, eyes flying open, but it takes another couple seconds for things to clunk into place. It’s not sleep paralysis or the ghost Jinki saw yesterday sitting on his chest or anything bad.

It’s Jinki.

_Again._ Taemin wriggles away from him until Jinki’s arm and leg slide off his waist and the backs of his knees, heavy with sleep. All the fucking times he’s done this before, Taemin has curled up into the corner of his bed, smushing himself up against the wall and waiting for Jinki to wake up, but each morning it gets harder and harder to resist the urge to push Jinki and send him rolling back onto his own bed, back where he started last night. He’s seconds away from giving in, one foot braced against Jinki’s side, when Jinki lifts his head, squinting over at him groggily.

“Sorry, Taemin-ah.”

That’s what he says every time. Taemin is the one who should be, probably, but he didn’t kick Jinki in the end, and it’s enough to make himself say, “I’m the one who woke you up.”

Jinki shakes his head, lifting himself up and rising to his knees and braining himself on the bottom of Jonghyun’s bunk. Jinki bites back his low pained noise, but there’s no point, there’s no way Jonghyun slept through the vibrations. All Taemin has to do is roll over at night and he’ll hear the mattress creak over his head as Jonghyun does the same. Unless Jonghyun is already up? Taemin peers over Jinki’s shoulder to find Minho and Kibum’s beds empty too.

“I just came to get you up again, but I must have fallen back asleep. Go shower.” Jinki pats at Taemin. “Minsoo hyung said we have to hurry.”

Shit.

Taemin scoots down to the foot of his bed, hitting his head too as he stands. The pain blinds him, leaving him to feel his way out of the room and into the hall as his vision clears, banging off walls and walking straight into Jonghyun.

Jonghyun’s hands shoot out to steady him, so big and warm and soaking into his shirt, as wet as the rest of him is from the shower. He never brings his clothes in with him, he always has to go back to their room to get dressed, and on the mornings Taemin is too slow to escape he’ll drop his towel right in front of him. Him and Jinki and Minho are all used to it from years of changing in front of each other for years while Taemin and Kibum went to the bathroom, but Taemin _isn’t._

“I woke you up before. You fell back asleep.” Jonghyun’s hands slide up to pinch both Taemin’s cheeks. Hard. He can’t feel how hot they are, right? “Hurry up, go shower.”

Jonghyun smushes his cheeks in until his lips pucker and Jonghyun can’t help but laugh at how ugly he’s made him, sending Taemin even hotter. Somehow in the next second he’s gone and Kibum is there instead, cutting in front of him with, “I have to pee really quick, then you can go, Taeminnie.”

The bathroom door slams in Taemin’s face. He presses it to the wall and squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to listen until he hears the flush and the faucet, and then Kibum comes out flapping his hands dry and it’s Taemin’s turn. When he steps into the shower he’s already bracing for the hot water to cut off, a river of ice that will freeze Jonghyun out from under his skin and turn him back to normal, but that’s just the memory of home. There it only took Taewoo beating him to the bathroom, but in this neighborhood, even five people showering ahead of him aren’t enough. The water is gentle and warm and forgiving and—

All of the sudden the door jerks open. By the time Taemin’s heart lands back in his chest, Minho has walked straight back out, his and Kibum’s voices rising over the sound of the water as they have the same argument they’ve had a hundred times in the past week. _We agreed to leave the door open when it’s empty. Which I did. Which you never do normally, you always close it, so I figured no one was in there. Are you deaf, can’t you hear the shower? Whatever, it was just Taeminnie._

It’s just Taeminnie, too, when he can’t find the last of Mom’s banchan in the fridge. He knows right where he left it, crammed in the back where the others would be too lazy to dig for it, but it’s not there. Or anywhere else.

“What are you looking for, Taemin-ah?” Kibum asks him impatiently. He barely waits ten seconds for Taemin to come up with something that’s not _my food that you ate._ It probably wasn’t Kibum, anyway. “Close the refrigerator, you’re wasting energy. And time. Do you want hyung to fry you an egg?”

Taemin shakes his head, shuffling over to the rice cooker and scraping the last of its contents into his bowl, before sliding into the nearest open seat at the table. His mom’s Tupperware greets him silently, open and empty except for the dregs of sauce. The sight of it sits like a rock in Taemin’s stomach, but Jinki’s must feel full and happy. Or Minho’s. Or Jonghyun’s? He sets his chopsticks down as Taemin picks his up, reaching across the table to shovel the remains of his rice into Taemin’s bowl with his spoon, forming a fluffy white mountain.

“Don’t ask him questions in the morning,” he says, watching with his head propped up on his hand as Taemin digs in. His hair is still wet, blacker than black and dripping onto his T-shirt. “It takes a while for Taeminnie to boot up.”

Kibum drops into the chair next to Taemin. “He’ll be asking what our schedule is in a second, just wait.”

Jonghyun snorts. “You could skip a step and tell him.”

“He could remember,” Kibum retorts, before sighing and shaking his head at Taemin. “Well, maybe he can’t.”

He reaches up to pick rice off his cheek. Taemin resists the urge to dodge, sitting still as the feeling that’s been living under his skin bubbles up again, slow and sick. Since moving in here his days have all run together into one long jumbled up blur, Minsoo hyung and Ssaem and the people at the company telling him where to go and what to do all day, Jonghyun babying him when he’s not ignoring him, Kibum watching for his mistakes before he even makes them, Minho only talking to him when it’s to remind him he can’t do something. Even if he steals his bed, Jinki is the only one who doesn’t boss him around, and he’s supposed to. The company made him the leader last week when they found out they hadn’t picked anyone yet.

Instead of going back into their room and flopping back down on his bed and pretending this day never started, Taemin guesses, “Album jacket shoot.”

Kibum laughs disbelievingly. “They wouldn’t have let us eat if that was it.”

Taemin’s face burns.

“Practice.”

“Taemin-ah~. That’s later.”

Kibum and Jonghyun both laugh, sending Taemin red hot. When Jonghyun leans across the table to pet his hair, Taemin slouches back in his chair so that his fingertips just barely graze Taemin’s bangs, warm and sudden, there and gone. His hand lands back on the table just as Jinki says from behind them, “Recording.”

The bottom falls out of Taemin’s stomach, and then it floods with weeks’ worth of dread.

That’s today?

The studio is across the street from the main SM building, only a few blocks form the training center, but it feels like another planet. A few days after the performance director and Rino came to show them “Replay’s” choreography, they took them here to show them around. The hallways were exactly what Taemin has grown used to, endless and echoing, shiny tiles flooded with fluorescent light, but they led into the unknown. Minsoo hyung reminded them so many times before he opened the door to the control room not to touch anything that when the engineer asked if they had any questions, that was all that was left in Taemin’s head. _No touching. Off limits._ The control panel was big and scary, a hundred tiny switches, more than even Jonghyun could ask about, and the view through the window into the vocal booth was worse.

That’s nothing compared to being inside it today. Taemin has slept on the vocal room floor more times than he’s sung in one, and this is different. The microphones are fancier, five all lined up in a row, and the silence is deeper and there’s less air somehow, and PD-nim and the engineers’ eyes on them all weigh a million pounds, staring at them from the other side of the window. The company gave Taemin one single line, the very first in the song, and then left him no time to practice it in between all the million other things they’ve had to do. Even if they had, maybe Taemin would have been too scared to try. It took him a whole day to even memorize those few lyrics, swirling around his head like sand through his fingers, and every time he says them out loud, his voice dies and he does too. Even in the shower, even mumbling through them with his face mashed into his pillow before the others followed him to bed. And now…

He can’t do this.

He has to.

He’s going to be sick, he’s going to throw up. He can’t. He can’t go wait this feeling out in the bathroom, either, he has to do it here.

He has to. It’s that or die, and if he doesn’t breathe, he really might. At least pass out.

_Breathe._

“I still don’t know how I should sing this,” Kibum mutters, putting his hand over his mic like he’s scared his words will carry beyond Taemin and the others. “I don’t know how a younger boyfriend should be, I’ve never dated anyone older.”

“Am I the only one who has?” Jonghyun glances around, eyes skipping right over Taemin to fall on Jinki, who shakes his head. “No aegyo, whatever you do. They want a man, not a baby.”

Kibum laughs. “Then what is Taeminnie supposed to do?”

Even if one of them could tell him, he still wouldn’t be able to do it.

“Just use your normal voice.” Jinki’s hand lands on Taemin’s back, so sudden and warm he jumps, eyes flying up to his face in time for Jinki gives him a smile, his biggest and stupidest. It fades in an instant. “That’s what I’m going to do. Older, younger, sincerity works on everyone.”

“Is technique insincere?” Jonghyun retorts over Taemin’s shoulder. “It’s expressing the emotions of the song, hyung. Telling a story.”

Taemin has never heard a voice that sounds like Jinki’s, and he’s never met anyone who could do as many things with theirs as Jonghyun can. His own voice is weak and thin and small and it takes all he has just to step up to the mic on the first take and force it out of his chest, and then he might as well have kept it in. How can he sound so bad?

How can he sound worse every take?

How. How did he ever think he could do this. How did the company, how could they have given him these lines, they’re the ones who had him audit vocal lessons instead of learning how to sing for real. 

It’s not their fault. Taemin is the one who never pushed and Taemin is the one who can’t sing. And he still sat in on years of lessons, heard all these terms a million times, yet now that it’s life or death, he can’t understand what the engineers are telling him to do. You went off key, Taemin-ah. You need to project. Control your breathing. Off key again. Is this kid tone deaf?

“Jonghyun-ah,” PD-nim says finally.

Taemin is so relieved it’s someone else for a second he could black out, leaving him with this sick, dizzy feeling. Jonghyun’s shoulder presses into his as he leans into the microphone.

“Yes?”

“You sing Taeminnie’s line. Let’s try it that way.”

Taemin’s stomach drops to his toes and his mouth fills with ash. Next to him Jonghyun is opening his mouth to protest, before Jinki reaches around behind Taemin to stop him with a hand on his back. As soon as Jonghyun nods he lets him go, his arm slips down over Taemin’s shoulders instead of falling back to his side, squeezing him close, consoling him where they all can see. The others’ eyes are all on him again. The engineers’ too. All Taemin can think is that he wishes this feeling would crush him into dust, melt him into a stain in the carpet at their feet, pop him like a bubble, just give him some place to hide if it won’t let him disappear. But they still need him here. He still has to do the chorus.

Or not.

“Taemin-ah, sing more softly,” PD-nim tells him after the next run through. “Your job is to make it sound fuller, we shouldn’t be hearing your voice over the others.”

Taemin’s face flushes red hot. His whole body does, burning away everything else inside him and leaving him numb. His voice has been so useless at singing, but now somehow he can’t get it out to talk, either. He nods, throat jamming up. Jonghyun pets his hair, squeezes his shoulder, hand so big and warm he can barely stand it, but when he shrugs it off it falls to his back, patting, rubbing, sending this bright hot awful feeling crawling up behind Taemin’s eyes. He jerks away blindly, bumping up against Jinki instead, whose smile is worse yet, the same as the one before.

_My voice isn’t going to appear in the song, hyung. I might as well not be a part of Shinee. What are my parents going to think when they listen to it and don’t hear me?_

Dad told him it’s okay that he can’t sing, he said he never got to either. Except Taemin had a chance and he fucked it up, and now it’s going to be worse than Junmyeon said even, they’ll be too smart to ever trust him with another line again, and.

And PD-nim is leaning in to the control room mic again. Taemin keeps his head up somehow, long enough to watch him say, “Take five minutes, drink some water. Good work so far.”

His eyes skip right over Taemin as he says it, straight from Jonghyun to Jinki. Which means it should be okay if Taemin isn’t here, after all. Right? At least for a while, at least for a second. Even half of one, Taemin doesn’t care.

Just asking has his heart thudding in his ears and his stomach writhing like snakes, but standing here and waiting to begin again would be the same. He ignores the water bottle Jonghyun tries to pass him. “I have to go to the bathroom. Is that okay?”

The engineers laugh. Could he just have gone? Or is it because he can’t leave? But then Minsoo hyung says from the corner, “Hurry.”

“Do you even know where it is?” No, but Taemin ignores Jonghyun’s question, too, pushing past him, whole world narrowing to the door. “Wait, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin gets maybe ten steps into the hallway and millions and millions of breaths, short and sharp and tight and dizzying, and then he hears footsteps. His heart is yelling at him to outrun him, slam himself into the first empty room and lock the door, but his muscles seize up, and as soon as he turns around he forgets all that anyway.

Not Jonghyun. Jinki.

“Hyung has to go too,” Jinki says at Taemin’s look. He smiles yet again, but it doesn’t match his words at all. “I can’t breathe in there.”

It never does. He’s looking at Taemin the same as he always did up on the roof, and he’s talking the same way too. It’s okay, Taemin-ah. _It’s okay if you’re not okay. Hyung isn’t okay, either._ Being with Jinki is the closest Taemin has been to having time alone since he moved into the dorm. His breathing slows. His heart does too.

_I’m not going to cry, hyung. Not even in front of you. I won’t ever again._

Taemin swallows his tears back and gets out, “Me neither.”

“The bathroom won’t be any better,” Jinki says, closing his hand around Taemin’s wrist and tugging him along. “The roof is too far away, but there has to be a window somewhere that isn’t locked.”

There isn’t.

Once Taemin fades into the background, recording speeds up. Jonghyun and Jinki were perfect on the first take, and Minho and Kibum don’t take much longer to get their parts right. The sun was still rising when they went into the studio, but it’s hidden behind the clouds by the time they reach the practice room. Taemin doesn’t want to leave until long, long after it sets, but then Jonghyun would just stay with him, and once Taemin’s body broke down and he collapsed finally, he’d probably try to get him to talk too. It’s bad enough that he’s been under Jonghyun’s eyes all day, burning into the side of his face in the vocal booth, catching Taemin’s in the mirror, clinging to his skin even through the rain on the way out to the car and up to the dorm, right up until Taemin makes it into their bedroom and shuts the door behind him. Then finally, _finally,_ he’s alone. 

It feels like he’s barely faceplanted into his pillow when the door opens again. He already knows it’s Jonghyun before the mattress dips behind him, but he’s out of places he can go. Instead of wriggling away or curling up into a ball, getting up and going to watch TV with Kibum, he just lays there, face hidden and struggling to breathe, and lets Jonghyun settle next to him. His arm across his waist is just as heavy as Jinki’s was this morning, pressing down on Taemin’s heart.

“Go to the store with me.”

Jonghyun’s voice is right in his ear. Jonghyun’s lips bump up against the shell of it when Taemin shakes his head, soft and warm and sudden, like an electric shock. Part of Taemin is screaming at him to roll away to safety, but he just says into the pillow, “Ask Jinki hyung, you won’t have to pay for him.”

There. Now maybe Jonghyun will go away. That’s as close Taemin can get to telling him to, which is not at all.

“Ahjumma’s car broke down on her way home, he went with Minsoo hyung to pick her up,” Jonghyun says.

Oh. If it were anyone else that would sound like a lie, but it’s Jinki. Minsoo hyung wouldn’t need his help with Ahjumma or her car, and he’d be fine with just the radio for company, and Jinki’s legs were cramping up so bad he could barely climb into the backseat after Taemin when they got out of practice, too. Now he’s going to sit in traffic all night, watching the rain splatter on the windshield.

Jinki would sit through a lot worse, and he has for Taemin, up on the roof in the middle of winter. No matter what, he’s always there. So is Jonghyun, though, and he’s ten times worse, since he can never just leave Taemin alone. “How did you miss all that? I can hear everything from in here.”

The smallest noise will wake Jonghyun up, too. Whenever they slept in the practice room together, Jonghyun never fell asleep first, and Taemin always woke up to Jonghyun staring into his face, and now whenever Taemin lies awake, Jonghyun does too. Maybe he never sleeps.

None of that has anything to do with anything, though. “Try Kibum hyung.”

“I’m asking you,” Jonghyun persists. “Hyung will buy you food, come on.”

_No. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to do anything. I had a shitty day, I feel like shit. Just let me be alone for once._

If he says any of that Jonghyun will just think he’s mad at him, though, and telling him he’s not would mean talking about it, and Taemin would rather die.

“I’m not hungry,” he tries.

Immediately Jonghyun is telling him, “You don’t need to worry about your diet, Taemin-ah, you don’t gain weight.”

“It’s not that, I’m really not,” Taemin forces out of his chest, but there’s no point, when Jonghyun is already so far ahead of him.

“Getting out of the dorm will be good for you. Aren’t you going crazy? I can’t remember the last time I went somewhere other than here and SM.”

Taemin doesn’t know how to tell him that Jonghyun is part of the life he can’t escape, that the only way Taemin can get out is to be alone, that he’d rather curl up and close his eyes and wait for his body to fall asleep than get up and put his shoes on and go back to letting Jonghyun drag him around instead of Minsoo hyung.

“We never used to, either. And we’ve been to the store a million times.”

“Not this one. They’re not all the same, each one's a little different. There are things at the one my sister works at that I can’t find anywhere else.” Jonghyun nestles closer, rubbing his hand up Taemin’s back, wheedling, “Taemin-aaah. Taemin-aaaah~.” His fingers close over Taemin’s shoulder, rolling him over into the open. Taemin goes unwillingly, right up until the moment they’re face-to-face, so close their noses almost brush and Taemin almost has to cross his eyes to look into Jonghyun’s. “Come with me.”

“Where are you going?”

Minho. Taemin sits up so fast he almost hits his head like Jinki did this morning.

Jonghyun makes no move to get up, craning to look at Minho with his hair fanned out over the pillow. He tells him, “The store.”

“I’ll come too.”

“You?”

Jonghyun sounds as surprised as Taemin feels, but maybe they shouldn’t be. Minho had way more friends than Taemin or Jonghyun when they were trainees. Neither Jonghyun or Taemin or the others were one of them, though, and since moving in to the dorm, Minho has only ever gone out with his soccer ball for company. He kicks it around in the park a few blocks away and doesn’t come back sometimes until all of the hyungs are in bed and he has to crawl over Jinki to get to his.

Minho shifts his weight awkwardly, eyes traveling between Jonghyun and Taemin. “I want to get something for Jinki hyung’s graduation.”

Did he spend all that time alone thinking about them? Maybe if Taemin had some, he would too. All he ever thinks about is himself.

Jonghyun struggles upright beside Taemin. “When is that?”

“Does it matter?” Minho says. “He’ll miss the ceremony for practice, if he didn’t already.”

Taemin forgot it was even happening. It feels like an eternity has passed since Jinki finished school in February, but it’s been less than a month somehow. It hasn’t been that much longer since Jinki told him that SM got him out of giving a speech to his classmates for coming in second in his class, or even that day up on the roof last fall, when he said he was thinking of not taking his college entrance exam if he made the cut for Shinee. And if he hadn’t made it, if he’d taken the exam after all, where would all this time have gone instead?

The only thing Taemin knows for sure is that he might not have been stuck in the car with Minsoo hyung right now, and he might not have spent a whole day trying to make Taemin feel better for things that aren’t his fault, from rolling on top of Taemin in his sleep to the voice he was born with…but he would have been doing something for someone else, somewhere.

Stupid hyung.

Taemin scoots to the foot of his bed and gets up, passing into the hallway before Jonghyun can scramble up after him and Minho. He catches up to them in the entryway, bracing his hand on the wall by Taemin’s head as he shoves his feet into his shoes, and just like that they’re nose-to-nose again, so close that if Taemin even breathes they’ll be touching everywhere, which he won’t, since it feels like there’s no air between them. His ears are tingling again, for no reason this time. It’s only okay to look because Jonghyun isn’t.

“Wait up.”

Kibum’s voice snaps Taemin to his senses. Before he can slide along the wall to freedom, though, Jonghyun drops his hand, stepping away and looking up to tell him, “We’re just going to the store, Kibum-ah.”

“I know, I have ears,” Kibum says, crowding past Minho into the entryway. “If we’re having a party I’d rather be in on it. The three of you would just get something weird.”

“Since when is this a party?” Jonghyun’s eyes narrow, traveling from Kibum to Minho and back like he’s sure one or both is setting him up. “Jinki hyung wouldn’t want us to make a big fuss, he’s not that kind of person.”

“You only graduate from high school once, hyung. Since we’re all stuck together, we should at least acknowledge it.” The rest of Kibum’s words are almost lost as he wrenches open the door. “No one else will, least of all him.”

Jonghyun opens his mouth, then closes it. His last line of defense is so weak he’s folding as he says it. “I only have 10000 won on me.”

“I have 15000,” Kibum says promptly. “That’s more than ten bags of chips, he’ll be happy.”

The lady from the program won’t, but if Jinki only graduates once, how many times could she yell at him for it? Maybe a lot, since it takes Jinki forever to lose weight, but as soon as Jonghyun takes Taemin by both shoulders and steers him out into the hallway, his hands are so firm and big and warm he forgets all that.

The rain is falling so fast the air seems to blur, hitting the sidewalk like bullets and rattling on the roof of the convenience store once they step inside. Jonghyun stops to grab one of the red baskets stacked at the front, then follows Taemin as he makes a beeline for the snack aisle. Everything that looks good goes in, choco pies and pepero sticks and kkokal corn, at least until Minho catches up to them and blocks Taemin from reaching the Pringles on the top shelf. 

“Don’t just get what you want, Taemin-ah.”

“Jinki hyung likes everything,” Jonghyun says before Taemin can even try to defend himself, rocking up onto his tiptoes to reach around Minho and swipe the canister into the basket.

Kibum snorts behind them. “Even he has favorites.”

He never sides with Minho. He doesn’t put it back, though, just takes the basket from Jonghyun and pushes to the front, leaving Taemin to follow behind him and try not to think about how long it’s been since he got to eat any of the things calling his name, or about the last time he ate until he was past full. But that leaves him with thinking about today instead, and that’s so much worse. He doesn’t even realize Jonghyun split off from the group until he returns, leaning around Taemin to toss something into the basket, pressing in against him, so sudden and warm and solid it takes a second to register what it is.

Cigarettes. And a carton of soju.

“Yah,” Kibum protests loudly, before he glances around, lowering his voice. “You know we’re finished if you get caught buying that, right? It won’t be funny then.”

“Haven’t you heard? Me and Minho are iljin. That’s the rumor going around. I probably smoke,” Jonghyun replies, so carelessly it has to be a joke, and sure enough when Taemin twists around to check, he’s on the very edge of a crazy smile. Taemin still doesn’t get it. What is he even talking about, what rumors?

“What about Jinki hyung, is he one too?” Minho says.

“Do none of you ever go online?” Jonghyun says impatiently. “He’s from China, last I checked.”

“So no,” Kibum says, taking the cigarettes and soju back out and leaving them on the nearest shelf.

Before Taemin can even blink Minho has picked them up again, and for one second Taemin is so sure Minho is going to lecture Kibum about where things should go the way he does when Kibum leaves his toothbrush out or puts plates back in the wrong place. But it only takes him a few seconds to put them back where Jonghyun found them, and when he catches up to them in the next aisle, he picks right back up with, “And Kibummie?”

“You guys all thought I was a gangster already, that’s old news,” Kibum says before Jonghyun can answer, voice all weird and tight. Taemin didn’t, he didn’t care about his stupid fight, he already told Kibum that—

“I didn’t,” Minho says before Taemin can tell him again. He clears his throat. “That’s not what I thought. You were the first person I met from Daegu, is all.”

Kibum shoots him a look, and then in the next second his eyes are anywhere but Minho’s face, wandering over the shelves and shelves of instant noodles.

“I must have taught you some new words, then.” Does he mean how to swear in Saturi? He told Taemin he would when he got older, and then he never did. Kibum scratches his nose, before snatching up the nearest pack of ramyun. “What's Taeminnie's thing?”

“Taeminnie?” Jonghyun teeters, biting his lip, sending Taemin’s heart fluttering up his throat. Is Taemin’s that bad that he won’t say it? But then all in a rush, “He’s a girl pretending to be a boy, his brother’s surgery went wrong so SM is using him as a stand-in.” What? Taemin’s face flushes bright hot, and when Jonghyun glances up at him, trying to catch his eye, he forgets to look away until it’s too late. “He’s too pretty to be real, they’re right about that~”

That’s so stupid. Taemin isn’t a girl. The only people who’ve ever called him one were the dicks in his class last year. And he’s not that pretty, not like that. Jonghyun’s eyes linger on his face, burning under his skin, dragging, “I didn’t know people talk about us,” out of him. Taemin blunders past him, heading for the refrigerator section. “How can we have fans when we haven’t even done anything yet?”

“They sound more like antis,” Kibum says evenly. “All you have to do is breathe and they’ll say it’s too loud. Don’t worry about them.”

All Taemin ever worries about is himself.

“Taemin-ah~, he doesn’t drink banana milk.”

What is Minho scolding him again for? He didn’t even reach for it this time, all he did was look at it. There’s coffee milk too, and yogurt, chocolate, strawberry, plain…

“He could,” Taemin says.

Before moving into the dorm together, Taemin never ate anything with Jinki that couldn’t sit out while they practiced, and now that they live together, the only thing he’s learned is that Jinki will eat whatever is there, including Taemin’s mom’s banchan.

Still, Minho is telling him, “It’s about sincerity, Taemin-ah.”

“It’s my money,” Jonghyun says from behind them, basket stolen back from Kibum, and before Taemin knows it, the banana milk goes in it just like the Pringles. 

Somehow his heart sinks with it, guilt buzzing in his skin, twisting up his stomach. He doesn’t even know what Jinki likes best, probably because he always liked Taemin more. He never got anything Taemin wouldn’t eat, and what he did get he never hogged. Besides fried chicken kimbap, but that’s not party food. No matter how hard he thinks back, all he can remember is Jinki’s smiles and his voice, the important things he told Taemin and the stupid things Taemin told him. Still…

Half the store ends up in the basket before Jonghyun finally cuts him off, and it’s not until then that Minho remembers, “What about decorations?”

“Do I look like I’m rich?” Jonghyun lugs the basket up front. “Use your sincerity to make some yourself, Minho-yah. We have paper and scissors back at the dorm.”

“Or you could put some of that back.”

Jonghyun twists away, out of Minho’s reach, protecting their haul. “I’ll help you.” Guilt bubbles up in Taemin’s stomach again, but Jonghyun won’t let him take any of it out, either, instead telling Minho, “Get whatever you want. Hyung will pay for it.”

It ends up taking everything in Jonghyun, Kibum, and Minho’s wallets to do it. Taemin doesn’t even have one. All his money in the world is stashed in a sock and squashed into the back of the bottom drawer of his dresser at home. He didn’t know he’d need it before they started making some. Jinki would never let Taemin buy him anything, anyway, any more than Jonghyun ever has. As they step out into the rain again he won’t even let Taemin carry any of the bags, even if that leaves him with no free hands to put his hood up.

Taemin tugs it over his head for him.

Minho and Kibum argue over how to surprise Jinki all the way up the stairs and down the hallway, whether they should turn all the lights off and hide, say cheesy things out loud or make a banner and write it down instead, but when Jonghyun unlocks the door, it’s to find Jinki already waiting on the other side.

“Where did you all go?” he says. “We went and got hotteok on the way home, they’re getting cold.” His eyes travel over the four of them frozen and dripping in the entryway, then fall to the bags in their hands like he’s just realizing. “What’s this?”

“All my money,” Jonghyun says, squelching out of his shoes and shouldering past him to dump all his bags on the kitchen table.

“And Minho’s, and mine too. At least what I had on me,” Kibum adds as he and Minho follow suit. “Happy graduation, hyung.”

Jinki’s face kind of falls open, almost as if he’d forgotten that he’d ever even graduated. Taemin has to herd him into kitchen with the others, junk food spilling out across the tabletop. Jinki’s bag of hotteok is an island in a sea of brightly colored plastic, crisp white paper spattered with butter.

It smells like heaven, nutty and sweet and warm after the rain, but Jinki is saying, “We can just save the hotteok for later and reheat it,” even though it won’t be as good then, and Taemin probably won’t even get any before Minho and Jinki eat them all, and.

Jonghyun’s eyes are on his face again, and whatever he finds there has him throwing their efforts of the last hour overboard, sweeping their haul up and cramming it back into the bags. “All this stuff will keep.”

Jinki stops him with a hand on his arm and a smile, bright and stupid and crinkly-eyed. “The meaning won’t.”

“Just have both.” Minsoo hyung. Taemin forgot he even existed until just now, following the sound of his voice to find him stretched out on the couch, eyes riveted to the TV screen as strings swell into an OST Taemin recognizes with a pang. He’s as bad as Taemin’s dad, he’s watching the same boring sageuk about Sejong. “They’re not weighing you until the end of the week, it’s better you eat it all now than save it.”

Do whatever you want, in other words. He looked so scary at first, but that’s what half the things he says come down to.

“What about you, hyung?” Jinki says.

“I’m fine. I eat all day.”

And that’s that, somehow. Jinki turns back to the table, stepping up next to Jonghyun to help him empty the bags and spread everything out so that he can see it all, including the balloons Minho was going to blow up and the streamers Kibum was going to hang and the stupid party hats Jonghyun got as a joke at the last second. When he says, “Thank you,” he probably means it with all his heart.

“Thank you? You’re so weird, hyung.” Kibum laughs, then clears his throat. “It was Minho’s idea, anyway.”

“Thank you, Minho-yah.” Jinki smiles to himself. “Taeminnie must have picked everything out.”

Kibum laughs again, that loud, disbelieving one that means he’s seconds from asking, _how could you tell?_ Before he can stop himself, Taemin says first, “I got what you liked. That’s what you used to buy all the time.” Jinki’s smile widens, but even as it closes Taemin’s stomach back up, it fills him with something even closer to shame than all Minho’s warnings in the store did. “You bought it because I liked it, right?”

Jinki is shaking his head at him. “Because we both did. We have the same taste.”

“You don’t know everything Taeminnie likes, that’s why you’re saying that.”

Jonghyun says it so quickly Taemin’s head spins, which is why ends up saying something as stupid as, “You don’t either.”

Jonghyun narrows his eyes at him, but he lets Taemin help him prepare the ramyun, even if he keeps telling Taemin not to add honey or anything weird like he does at home, and he spends forever putting one of his hats on Taemin, adjusting the angle just so, laughing at Taemin and telling him how cute he is in the same breath. He doesn’t even put one on himself. When Jinki sidles up to the stove to stick the bag of hotteok under Taemin’s nose, he’s wearing two, sticking up like devil horns while he asks Taemin impossible things like, “Does Taeminnie want brown sugar or cheese~? I wasn’t sure, so I got both.”

“Taeminnie prefers sugar,” Jonghyun tells Jinki quickly. “He likes both, though.”

Jinki hands him two without a second thought, leaving him to rip off half of the first one for Jonghyun and eat them over the stove, crispy and chewy and salty and sweet, like nothing he’s tasted for weeks.

Minho blows the balloons up to bursting and sends them floating off around the dorm, and after the streamers fall down for the third time, Kibum just lets them stay that way. Jinki calls dibs on the ramyun pot lid only to give it to Taemin, devoting himself instead to having a little bit of everything, even after Kibum tells him not to open every bag, that it'll all go stale before they can finish it. Taemin tries to watch him to see what he eats the most of, what he goes back to after he's had it, trying to burn everything into his memory for next time. Jinki only has one graduation, but his birthday comes every year, and once they debut, there has to be something in their career that will mean as much as graduating from school did. Maybe more.

Later, much much later, when the smiles have faded from Taemin’s face and his stomach is so full from food there’s no room left for the feeling that hollowed it out this morning…Jonghyun’s bed creaks over Taemin’s head.

“Are you sleeping, Taeminnie?” His voice is so soft Taemin could pretend not to hear it. He could lie still and squeeze his eyes shut and wait until he forgets he did. “I know you don’t want me to be sorry, but I am.”

For one long endless moment, Taemin waits. Not for sleep to come, for the tears to rise up again.

“You didn’t take my lines from me.” His own voice is just as quiet, but instead of settling on top of him, crushing him into he mattress, his words float away like Minho’s balloons. “I’m the one who was lacking.”

Silence. From Jonghyun’s bed and Jonghyun, echoing through Taemin while the others shift and sigh and Minho lets out a soft snore. Then, “Get them back, Taeminnie.”

How?

Even if Taemin works as hard at singing as he’s worked at dancing, would that be enough? His body knew how to move before he was even taught, but his voice isn’t like that. It’s thin and weak and small, and PD-nim told him today he’s tone deaf. At the same time, though…if Taemin does nothing, it’ll stay this way forever. He will. Jonghyun will say the same thing about the next song, and the next, and his parents will listen to another album without hearing his voice, and Taemin will just be a singer who can’t sing.

The only thing he can do is work harder.

Taemin turns onto his side, curling up into a ball as tight as his chest. “Hold onto them until I do.”

Just then something warm and solid lands on top of him, knocking the air out of his chest.

Jinki, again.

Thanks to him, Taemin finds the breath to say, “Go to sleep for once, hyung.” And thanks to him he keeps breathing, until Jonghyun says good night back and finally his mattress goes silent and still, no more tossing and turning, and Jinki shakes him awake the next morning, because somehow Taemin slept. Same as always he tells him, “Sorry, Taemin-ah.”

Just this once, Taemin feels sorry too for all the mornings he’s wanted to kill him.


	15. Shoot

Taemin doesn’t realize he’s sweating until it drips into his eyes. The second he blinks it away he slams back into his body, and he feels grosser than he ever has. His hair is so damp it’s like he just washed it or something and his shirt is sticking to his back, and when he lifts his arm to wipe his forehead, Jongin makes a face like he smells. If he does, Jongin must too. He’s been here just as long and he’s danced just as hard, and it’s not even his song. All Taemin asked him to do was take the water bottle from him and pass it back, the way Kibum will do with Taemin’s microphone when they’re on stage, but he ended up learning the whole choreography, shadowing Taemin in the mirror. When Taemin collapses onto the floor now, he follows suit with a groan that sounds like Taemin feels. 

“You shouldn’t have gone so hard, you should’ve saved your energy for tomorrow,” Jongin says, two hours too late. “If you mess up they’ll just re-shoot it, Taemin-ah. Music videos aren’t like a live stage.”

Just the words send the bottom dropping out of Taemin’s stomach. Shooting. MV. Live stage. If he doesn’t cut it off now, the thought will grow in his head and eat all his dreams tonight, unless he lies awake instead with his insides shrinking in on themselves. For three years, he lived for debuting, but now somehow it’s so scary he could die.

Taemin swallows everything back and says as normally as he can, “I’m practicing for that, too.”

Jongin rolls onto his side towards him, eyes finding Taemin’s. “Have they said when it’ll be yet?”

“Soon.”

Minsoo hyung thinks next month, but he told them in the same breath that he doesn’t make their schedule, he’s just there to make sure they follow it.

“I don’t know anyone else who’s been on TV,” Jongin says.

Taemin never thought about it like that. Now that he has, it’s ten times worse. He should have let the song restart, he should have danced until his muscles gave out, because whenever he stops it starts feeling like his heart will. Even with Jongin.

“What about all the SNSD noonas?” he makes himself say. “And Super Junior used to come to visit us a lot, you were there for the last time.”

Jongin shakes his head at him. “I don’t mean someone I’ve seen before. Someone I really know.”

“You can start calling me seonbaenim now~” It pops out of Taemin’s mouth before he can rethink, then hangs in the air between them, awkward and heavy. Jongin was supposed to laugh, not lie there staring at him some more. Did that sound arrogant? But Jongin knows him, he just said. He knows he’s not like that. Taemin’s muscles scream as he stretches his leg out to nudge his foot into Jongin’s shin. “How’s training?”

Jongin makes a face.

“Everything is the same as when you left, except more boring. Almost all the hyungs besides Junmyeon left.”

At least he stayed. Maybe once he debuts Taemin will stop feeling like he took his place. He never told Jongin about that, but he’s probably heard it all anyway. He was the only reason Taemin ever used to know what was going on.

“What about new kids?” Taemin says.

“SM isn’t looking, at least not for boys,” Jongin replies. “Soojungie says her lessons are starting to fill up again. She hates it, she says all the new girls are scary, they’re too good. With her visuals, she doesn’t have to worry, though.”

“Are you two dating or something?”

“What? No.” Jongin makes another face at him. “You can be friends with girls, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin rolls over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for the knot in his stomach to unravel. “I just didn’t know you were.”

_I don’t know anything anymore, Jongin-ah. If I told you everything that’s happened since the last time we saw each other we would be here for days. How can you say it all in one breath?_

“My noona asked me the same thing. About Soojungie. She’s never even met her, I just talked about her once in front of her.”

Jongin’s noona used to ask Taemin things, too, whenever he came to visit and Jongin went to the bathroom or to get Taemin something to drink or something. _Does Jonginnie have a girlfriend? I’m not gonna rat on him to Mom, you can tell me._ Or, _Do the older kids mess with you guys? Noona is pretty scary, I can tell them off for you._ And this one time when Taemin was staying over and she came home drunk and he and Jongin put her to bed before their parents found out, _You two aren’t allowed to grow up. All men are bastards._

“Did she dump her boyfriend yet?” Taemin says.

“The one my mom hated? Yeah. She found another one, but I don’t know if he’s any better.” Jongin only hesitates for a second, but even that much hurts. “What about Taewoo hyung?”

Taemin swallows hard.

“I don’t know. I forgot to ask last time.”

Which was weeks and weeks ago, back in March. They all sounded weird over the phone, miles and miles away and right in his ear at the same time, and when he heard Mom’s voice, Taemin forgot everything he had thought of to say, and his throat closed up so tight he could barely get a word out anyway. If he called now, she would probably complain about all the rain they’ve had this month, and then Taemin would lie awake all night listening to it patter against the roof, all while Jonghyun did the same, listening for Taemin’s tears. He hasn’t cried in forever, but now he can’t even breathe funny in case he hears.

“Time to go, Taemin-ah.”

Jonghyun.

Taemin struggles upright to find Jonghyun leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. He looks like he’s been standing there for hours. He could have been, for minutes at least. Maybe their whole conversation. As he lurches to his feet, Jonghyun’s eyes track his movements, cataloging all his weaknesses in half a second. Once Jongin is out of earshot he’s probably going to tell Taemin the same thing Jongin already did. _You danced too hard, Taemin-ah. Ssaem said not to go all out today, to save our energy. Why don’t you ever listen, hm? Hm?_ Taemin is almost wincing away from the ghost of Jonghyun’s finger poking into his side, but somehow Jonghyun’s hand sends him out of his skin, heavy and warm on his shoulder as he herds Taemin into the hallway. Jongin walks with them as far as the stairs, before he stops with that weird look on his face. The first time Taemin saw it was two weeks ago, on another night like this, which was the first time they’d seen each other since last year. Taemin never realized until that moment that they’d never said goodbye before.

He hates it.

“Text me some time,” Jongin goes with in the end.

Taemin only gets his phone at the end of the day, which is basically the beginning of the next one, long after Jongin should be asleep. And Taemin is so tired half the time he forgets to even try him. He wishes they’d debuted together, then Jongin would be stuck with him twenty-four seven, just like Jonghyun. 

As they clatter down the stairwell, Jonghyun says like he’s read his mind, “I gave you as much time as I could. The others already went out to the van.”

“It wasn’t like we were hanging out, he was helping me.”

“With things you don’t need help with,” Jonghyun tells him, same as he has all week. He probably thinks he can annoy Taemin into believing him. “Don’t be nervous about tomorrow, Taemin-ah.”

Either that or he’s trying to make himself believe it. Taemin sneaks a glance at him as they reach the doors. “You aren’t?”

Jonghyun teeters for a few seconds, but the hesitation gives him away before he folds like paper, admitting, “I am,” in this weird rush. He wrenches the door open and crowds Taemin out into the rain scented night. The van is right there idling at the curb, blacker than the sky, strings shivering in the air as Kibum rolls the door open. Minsoo hyung’s nighttime soundtrack, ballads that would bore even Dad. Jonghyun waits until they’ve both squeezed in next to him in the middle seat before he says over swelling music, “I’ve never been on camera before. This is the first time in my life I’ve worried about my looks. What if I come out weird?”

Taemin isn’t even going to think about that part.

“That’s what makeup is for.” Or that part, starting from now. Kibum reads it in his face in under a second. “Aigoo, look at you. You didn’t even realize we’d have to wear it, right?”

It isn’t like Taemin is Minho or something, he’s not the visual. The only thing the company asked him to do is not get fat and grow his hair out. Jongin didn’t say anything about it when he saw him, even when Taemin pulled his bangs back with a hair tie, and he would’ve laughed at him if it looked weird.

As Minsoo hyung wheels onto the street, Jinki leans in from the back seat to reach for Taemin, patting his head. “Don’t worry, Taeminnie, they probably won’t put a lot on.”

Almost as soon as Jinki’s hand leaves his head Jonghyun’s replaces it, fingers tugging at the pigtail in front, because Taemin forgot to take it out. “You look cute no matter what, anyway.”

Jonghyun was the one who said noonas didn’t want a baby. Part of Taemin is dying to yank away, but somehow with the slightest movement the pull on his hair is too much, this strange tingling pain that doesn’t hurt.

“Did they get an actress yet? A pretty noona~?”

That does. Taemin’s bangs fall into his face, at least the hair that didn’t part with his scalp. Jonghyun is already rubbing it better before Taemin can squish himself against the window and press his face against the cool glass, but Jonghyun wasn’t asking him. As soon as someone answers he’ll forget Taemin even exists.

“You’re dreaming,” Kibum scoffs. “It’s not going to be anyone we don’t already know. I heard from one of the girls that they asked Qian noona to do it.”

“Who were you hoping for?” Minho says from the front.

All the same ones Taewoo likes, all Jonghyun’s shampoo CF girlfriends he’ll stop and stare at while he brushes his teeth. Shin Minah, Son Yejin, Ha Jiwon, Jeon Jihyun, Kim Taehee, Song Hyekyo…

Minsoo hyung turns the volume up to drown him out.

The next morning, Minsoo hyung keeps the radio off. Taemin has lived in Seoul for almost all his life, but today they take the highway to a part of it Taemin doesn’t think he’s ever seen. The street they pull off onto is fast asleep like the rest of the city, quiet and empty and still, right up until they reach set. Then it’s everything at once, crew members and cameras everywhere. Before Taemin can even look around once Kibum is already rolling the door open. Part of Taemin is dying to curl up in the backseat of the van and wait for the others to return and part of him can’t seem to move. It takes Jinki pushing him forward for his muscles to unlock, and then Jonghyun is grabbing his wrist, pulling him down from the van, hand as firm as Jinki’s was gentle.

It’s only the five of them for a second, and then there are people all around them, pressing in all sides, all saying things Taemin can’t seem to understand. It’s okay, they’re talking to Minsoo hyung anyway. Or Jinki. Or Jonghyun, or Kibum and Minho. Not him, not until one of them says, _Aigoo, how is it that idols keep getting younger? You must still be in middle school._ Taemin bows so deeply so many times he’s seeing double by the time Minsoo hyung leads them over to greet Director-nim, who grunts and nods at them from his chair, parked in front of the bank of monitors. All the screens are blank, Director-nim’s own reflection playing over them, but once they start, Taemin and the others will be on there.

Shit.

Taemin’s legs are shaking. His whole body is. He’s going to be sick. But he barely takes one step towards the plank stage they constructed for them to dance on, Jonghyun tugs him away, towards one of the warehouses on the far end of the lot. “They said hair and makeup, Taeminnie. You didn’t even wash your face this morning.”

Hair and makeup is two noonas Taemin has never seen in his life, but they both know his name. The one with the bleached hair takes him first, sitting him down in front of the wall of mirrors and clipping his hair out of his face, same stupid pigtail he ends up with whenever he practices, but the moment she picks up her makeup brush in her chubby hand, he stops knowing what to expect. She doesn’t tell him, either, except, “This might tickle, but don’t laugh.” And lots of other stuff. He can call her Miran noona. Her boyfriend didn’t want her to work with a boy group, but Taemin and the others are all babies. “Don’t worry, you won’t take long. They must have picked you for your face.”

What?

“That’s Jonghyun hyung and Minho hyung,” Taemin says stupidly. “It was for my dancing.”

“You’re pretty and talented, in other words. If you weren’t such a cutie I’d hate you,” she replies, eyes still intent on her work. “When I talk to you, don’t feel like you have to talk back. When I concentrate I run my mouth.”

Geunyoung noona doesn’t say anything to Taemin at all, except, “Here, put this on,” in the thickest saturi he’s ever heard. Before Taemin can figure out where, she’s already herding him towards the screen at the end of the room. Back there? Anyone walking by could look and see. But she’s already waiting, standing there with her bony arms crossed, so Taemin does what he’s told as quickly as he can, mouth filling with cotton and skin buzzing in the cool air. The feeling doesn’t leave after he’s all dressed and escaped back into the open, and when he catches his own eyes in the mirrors, it gets worse.

“I look the same.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” Kibum says, stepping up next to him to eye himself critically, checking his angles and teasing his hair, editing the coordi noonas’ work. “It’s a thing, Taeminnie. You wear so much makeup to look like you’re not wearing any.”

Then what was the point? It was just extra minutes for Taemin’s stomach to finish eating itself before he stepped out onto the stage. The ground is still damp from last night’s rain, but the sun is shining down on them as they take their places, not bright enough to blind Taemin to all the eyes on him. Or the cameras, when Director-nim tells them thirty seconds into the first take, “Watch your facial expressions when you dance. And keep your eyes on the camera.”

Which one? Taemin can’t find his voice to ask, and the answer keeps changing. His head is so jumbled up he’s surviving on muscle memory to remember the steps, and Director-nim keeps yelling “Cut!” and stopping and starting and stopping and starting, throwing Taemin out of rhythm and leaving him to pick himself back up every time. Which he does. He’s practiced this song a hundred times, maybe a million, but this is the time that counts, and he doesn’t care how many times this time means. He’s only going back to the dorm once he deserves to sleep. As the sun climbs in the sky, they burn through the choreography over and over and over, slowing down and speeding up, close ups and wide shots and fancy English terms Director-nim throws at them that Taemin barely understands, but they all translate into things he does. Keep going. Dance harder. Smile more. Turn to this camera or that one. Lip sync to words he's never sung. Hair and makeup touch ups after every other take.

Lunch is nothing and dinner is packs of cold instant rice and fishcakes that Taemin can barely get down. Jonghyun doesn’t touch his at all, except to shovel it into Taemin’s empty bowl. The only other breaks they get are all spent huddled over the monitors with Director-nim. Taemin would rather dance until his legs break than look at his own face on the screen, body rushing hot and cold as Director-nim gives him notes._ You dance so well but your expressions are awkward, Taemin-ah. Look. What’s with this face you’re making? You think you’re so cute already you don’t need to act, huh. But you do. Play it up._

It’s almost a relief when night falls and the shoot moves indoors. While the crew is setting up inside the warehouse, the stars come out, a thousand tiny pinpricks of light in the big black sky that all start to blur together as Taemin stares. The stars on the stage inside are nothing like them, glitter and fluorescence, light bulbs popping on and off, so big and bright Taemin can’t tell what they are from up close. Outside time moved like normal as the sun rose and set, but in here it goes in circles, starting with the first beats and ending as the last note dies, and again. And again and again and again, around and around and around and.

“There has to be an end to this, this song is only three minutes and thirty seconds and we’ve been shooting for like eighteen hours,” Kibum says raggedly. “I’m going crazy.”

Jinki half-laughs, half-groans, this sound like he’s dying. “Replay, replay, replay~”

Taemin only knows it’s tomorrow when Qian noona shows up. They shoot their scenes with her one at a time while the other four stretch out in the corner of the warehouse. Minsoo hyung steals clothes from the hangers for them to use as pillows and blankets, at least until Geunyoung noona swears at him worse than Taemin’s ever heard Kibum, and then Jonghyun gives Taemin his arm instead. Except when Taemin comes to he’s kneeling over Taemin instead, shaking him awake. “You’re up, Taemin-ah.”

Taemin lurches upright dumbly, twisting away when Jonghyun tries to help him up. If it’s a struggle to climb to his feet, how is he supposed to dance again? Jonghyun should worry about himself, anyway. Whenever he used to pass on the vocal room and stay all night to practice choreo with Taemin it almost killed him.

“Don’t be nervous, Taeminnie,” he’s saying now. “You already know her, and you won’t even have to talk to her anyway.”

Oh. That’s right. No dancing. Which means Director-nim has nothing good to say this time.

_You’re too awkward. Smile, Taemin-ah. There must be a girl you like, think of her. No? Aigoo. I remember being sixteen, Taemin-ah. If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, but just think of her._

“I don’t mind if you think of another woman~” Qian noona says, squeezing his hand. “I have four other boyfriends, after all.”

Taemin wasn’t lying, the last time he liked a girl he was too young to remember how it feels now, and the one in the song doesn’t like any of them back, that’s the whole point. It takes another ten takes, all less than a minute, before Director-nim gets tired of yelling cut and says instead, _Do you have something else you can do, a personal talent? I’m trying to get you screen time here. Minho played basketball. Yah, see if you can find him a skateboard._

It takes Kibum’s whole turn for them to borrow one off one of the neighborhood kids, which he finishes in half the time Taemin wasted already. He’s never liked a girl in his whole life, but Director-nim doesn’t even ask him.

Taemin hates Kibum right up until he hobbles off camera, expression twisting, voice tight as he says, “You should have seen Jonghyun hyung’s love story with her, it was gross. Doing worse than him is doing better, Taeminnie, don’t worry about it,” and then he just hates himself. Before long, he’s too tired even for that. It’s after dark again when Qian noona leaves with a smile and a wave and a, “Fighting!”

This time they stay outside. The clouds have rolled in since the last time Taemin found the energy to lift his head and look up into the sky, and there are no stars or moon, only black.

Taemin’s legs are still holding him up and his heart keeps beating, so he keeps dancing.

It’s near dawn again when Director-nim shouts “cut!” for the final time and the crew dissolves into applause. The sound of it ricochets around Taemin’s head and the ground zooms up to meet him as he bows, and then everywhere he turns there are smiling faces closing in on him, crew members squeezing his shoulders and petting his head and telling him, “Good job, Taemin-ah,” and “you held up so well,” and “go eat, you must be starving,” until finally he feels a hand on his back that he’d know anywhere. Jonghyun guides him through the crowds of people, smiling and nodding and bowing for both of them while Taemin focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. Before he knows it, they’ve reached the outskirts of the shoot, the same plastic table where they ate cold rice last night, but this time there’s a steaming bowl of soup so big Taemin could fall into it. Jonghyun catches him on his way down, hands twisting up in Taemin’s shirt, fingers biting into the skin underneath until Taemin’s butt hits his seat and he realizes how much his legs hurt, and then he’s gone. Only for a second, though, before he drops down next to Taemin, warm and solid along Taemin’s side, dulling the pain somehow.

“Real food, Taemin-ah.” Taemin’s spoon is almost as heavy as his head, but Jonghyun is saying, “Director-nim sprung for ox bone soup. You like that.”

The first sip of broth burns Taemin’s tongue so bad he won’t be able to taste it, but the next hissed breath isn’t his. Next sniff. Sob. Someone is crying. Taemin’s eyes shoot to Jonghyun’s face, heart flying up his throat, but it’s not him, not this time.

“It’s just the soup,” Kibum tells them all loudly. “It’s so fucking hot, it’s making my nose run.”

“And your eyes?”

Jonghyun’s voice is almost gentle, but the look Kibum shoots him could kill. If it weren’t for the tears swimming in his eyes, that is, or the red tracks down his cheeks, the way his mouth is twisting up, all these things that jam up Taemin’s chest before he can even piece them together. It gets worse when Kibum buries his face in his hands, fingers knotting in his hair.

“Eat more,” Jinki says, rubbing Kibum’s back. “Let it all out.”

“I fucking burned my tongue.”

The words come out all jumbled up, trapped in Kibum’s palms.

“Eat, Kibum-ah.”

Kibum takes this great shuddering breath that comes out as, “Shit.” He grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes, before he drops them again. The same look is still on his face, the one Taemin isn’t supposed to be seeing. “If I’d known it’d be like this I never would’ve signed up. You’re all psychos.” His eyes narrow into a glare as they land on Jinki. “Especially you.”

“Yup, I’m psycho~”

“I thought you wouldn’t survive this kind of work, you’re way too soft for it, you’re like tofu. How am I the only one who’s like this, where are your tears?”

“Tofu holds a lot of water,” Jinki says, pressing Kibum’s spoon back into his hand.

The sooner he eats the sooner they can all go home, but instead he glares some more, voice breaking as he gets out, “If you stack plates on it for thirty minutes it all drains out. It’s been two whole fucking days.”

Not whole, not yet. When Taemin last looked at the sky instead of Kibum or his food, the sun was still coming up, and by the time they got to set it was already shining overhead. Right? Except when Taemin tips his head back now, it looks exactly the same as it did in his memory, blue and endless, so bright it burns holes in his vision. His soup is endless, too, so deep Taemin could swim in it, but somehow when he pitches forward his head lands on Jonghyun’s shoulder instead. And stays there. Kibum still sounds like he’s crying and his legs probably hurt as bad as Taemin’s, and his soup must be getting cold, unless it’s in Jinki’s stomach, and people are talking, and the city bumps and rattles and honks and burns red against Taemin’s eyelids, until it turns to black.

“I can carry Kibummie.”

Minsoo hyung’s voice.

“He’s not that heavy.” And Jinki’s. “I guess his diet is working~”

“Because I actually follow it,” Kibum says instead of _I can carry myself._ Except that doesn’t make sense and Kibum always does.

“What about Taeminnie?” Minho says.

Taemin just needs a second, and then he’ll get up, but a lot more than that pass and in the end, he doesn’t. Jonghyun tugs his arms over his shoulders and pulls Taemin forward, onto his back. The rest of the world falls away and he’s all that’s left. Somehow the ground is millions of miles from his feet, dangling uselessly as Taemin hangs onto him for dear life, but that’s stupid and Jonghyun is short. It wouldn’t hurt even if he dropped him. This time he gets it right, gets out, “I can walk,” through a mouthful of Jonghyun’s shirt.

“You blacked out a second ago.”

Jonghyun’s footfalls echo up the stairs, up, up, up. When did they get inside?

More importantly, “How come you’re not tired?”

“I am.”

“You never sleep.”

“I’m so tired I’m not tired,” Jonghyun says. “That’s just how hyung works.”

Taemin doesn’t know how anything else does, time or space or himself. Somehow that’s his bed right there, or at least Jinki’s, but that doesn’t matter. A bed, after two whole days like Kibum said, so soft and warm he could die, and yet he can’t make himself let go of Jonghyun. He sinks down with Taemin in the end, but it takes no strength for him to pry Taemin’s hands free and send him whooshing back onto the mattress. His eyes slide shut again before he even hits it. Jinki never steals Taemin’s bed on purpose, so Taemin can’t be stealing his, but he’s forgotten how to move. Jonghyun figures it out for him, pushing and rolling him until they end up in a tangle of limbs. If Jonghyun wants to climb up to his bed he can figure out what belongs to who. Taemin is just gonna sleep. Or not. As he lies here his body should be shutting down, but somehow instead it goes off automatic. His heart skips every other beat and he has to remember how to breathe, and even when he screws his eyes shut tight and buries his face in the pillow, he doesn’t see black like before. The weird bright feeling inside him blinds him as badly as the sun did, every tiny part of him waking up, all of it bending towards the places he and Jonghyun overlap.

Is he sleeping yet?

Taking a peek would mean opening his eyes, though, and the answer has to be no. The others are being way too loud. Jinki’s mattress creaks as someone who’s not Kibum climbs up to his bed, because Kibum’s legs are so swollen he’d never make it up. And he said he was going to the bathroom and that’s the toilet flushing now. When he walks in he says sharp and brittle as broken glass, “Don’t mess my bed up, hyung.”

Jinki’s answer is a grunt.

“Hyung rolls around when he sleeps,” Minho says. “What if he falls?”

“He won’t die.” Jonghyun’s voice is right in Taemin’s ear, low and soft and warm. “Depending on where he lands, Kibummie might~”

“Hyung won’t fall, Kibum-ah. I ate so much my body won’t move.”

Jinki must be where Taemin’s soup ended up, just like he’d thought. Kibum ends up in Jinki’s bed, sheets rustling and mattress sighing as he stretches out with one last warning he doesn’t mean: “You drank three whole bowls of broth. Just don’t step on me when you get up to pee in an hour, all right?”

Once his body lets him, Taemin is going to sleep for a million years.

He wakes up way before then. For once it’s not Jinki’s fault. It’s no one’s. Taemin hasn’t even opened his eyes before the pain hits him. But then he does, and it fades into nothing.

Jonghyun is sleeping.

This is how it looks. His mouth his hanging open, which probably means he drooled on Taemin’s pillow all night, and his hair is fanned out across it, that brown color Taemin can’t get used to catching in the sunlight. When he lifts his head it’ll probably stick up and he’ll look really stupid. Right now he looks…like himself. Like a stranger. Something in between.

His eyes are flickering as he dreams. A bad one? His fingers are curled into a fist on the mattress between them. Taemin barely catches up to his own hand before he presses his thumb to the crease between Jonghyun’s eyebrows. By then it’s too late. Even that is too much.

Jonghyun’s eyes are open.

Taemin’s blood freezes, then melts as his heart picks up, slamming in his chest. It’s not like he was staring or anything weird, he just woke up. And it’s his bed. Jonghyun’s is up there. And so what if he is, when Jonghyun is staring back, eyes as dark as the circles under them. When Jonghyun reaches up to push Taemin’s hair out of his face, his hand is so warm it steals the breath from his body, leaving him paralyzed, newfound awareness of all the places they’re touching overriding all his aches and pains.

Jonghyun doesn’t move. Just keeps looking at him and says, “Come take a bath with me.”

Taemin tries so hard to make his yes into a no all the way up to putting his shoes on. Nothing on this earth could change Kibum’s no into a yes, since he says he’d rather die from the pain in his legs than go to a bathhouse. Even Jinki staying behind with him so that he won’t be alone doesn’t convince him to go. Minsoo hyung won’t let Jonghyun and Taemin and Minho take the train there, but he drops them off out front instead of coming in, and once Jonghyun pays for the three of them and the staff leaves them in the changing rooms with pajamas and towels, he puts Taemin’s cell phone in his own locker, followed by the rest of his things. Including his clothes.

"You’ll just lose your key, Taemin-ah. It’s safer if hyung keeps it all for you."

That leaves Taemin not knowing where to look and dying to hide, even though he knows there’s nothing for anyone here to see. Jonghyun and Minho talk to him like they would if he had clothes on, except somehow that’s ten times worse, Jonghyun petting his hair and pinching his cheek and saying things like, “How are you so shy? You’ve probably been more than me.”

Millions and millions of times with Dad and Taewoo, but that’s different. When they get out of the shower and slide into the bath, it’s a little better. The water comes up to their shoulders so it’s safe to look again, and neither of them say anything when Taemin closes his eyes and tips his head back and floats away instead. At least until Jonghyun’s hands are on his shoulders again, his voice in his hear telling him, “You can’t fall asleep in here, Taemin-ah, come on.”

Taemin wasn’t, but fine. Or not. Next is scrubbing. Jonghyun does Minho’s back, which leaves Taemin with his. It looks as broad as it felt last night. This morning. Whatever. Maybe Jonghyun was right, maybe he’s still blacking out, maybe it’d be nice if he did again. His head would land right between Jonghyun’s shoulder blades, as warm and solid as his memory, and he would miss the part where Jonghyun told him off again and. Somehow all the heat from the bath is climbing into Taemin’s face. Jonghyun’s skin is still really hot to the touch, too, soft and firm at the same time, muscles shifting beneath Taemin’s fingers.

Taemin scrubs. He scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, hands gone clumsy and stupid, right up until Jonghyun thrums with laughter and he twists around to shoot Taemin a look. “How does Taewoo have any skin left?”

Then somehow they become clumsier and stupider. Taemin does. He picks up again, gentler than before. When Jonghyun steps away it’s a relief, but his hands are already reaching for Taemin, trying to turn him around to return the favor. Before Taemin can even think he’s wriggling away, and the next time he does, he’s safe in his pajamas, stretched out on the common room floor while Minho watches the kimchi drama playing on the big TV and Jonghyun peels the army of hardboiled eggs he bought. He lets Taemin have one in exchange for smashing the next shell against his forehead, and Taemin uses it to avoid talking, stuffing his mouth to bursting.

“This is the only place where I wished I had a hyung instead of a noona,” Jonghyun says, eyes on his hands. “It was so lonely going with her and Mom that I used to stay home instead.”

Is that why Mom never came with them? She always said she was busy with the laundry, or she wanted them out of the way while she made kimchi, stuff like that.

“You think that’s why Kibum hates it so much?” Minho takes his eyes off the television to glance between the two of them. “He never had anyone to go with so he never learned to like it.”

Because he’s an only child. Jinki is too, though, and he wanted to come, and anyway, that’s not it, Taemin is pretty sure.

“He doesn’t like getting naked in front of people,” he gets out, half in Korean and half in egg.

“Unlike some people? I saw that look, you brat.” He didn’t see anything, but as soon as Jonghyun pushes his thumb into Taemin’s bulging cheek, his touch has Taemin’s mouth crimping, this weird smile-smirk that’s nothing like how Taemin feels inside. “I don’t like it, Taeminnie, I just don’t hate it.”

“Unless it’s with a girl?”

Jonghyun laughs disbelievingly. “You never even held hands with one until Qian noona yesterday, and now you can say things like that?”

That’s not even true, Taemin has, and besides, “I know what that is, hyung. When you were my age you were doing it.”

Jonghyun opens his mouth, then closes it, eyes narrowing. Taemin flops onto his side away from him to avoid them, but Jonghyun’s voice is too loud to ignore. “That’s me. Have you even had your first love yet?” And before Taemin can even answer, “It doesn’t count if it was in kindergarten, you should be able to remember it.”

Taemin can, though. She wrote him a love letter and left it in his desk, and when she sent her friend to ask him if he liked her too, it felt like a lie when he said no.

“I haven’t dated either, Taemin-ah,” Minho says.

Taemin turns over in time to watch Jonghyun’s expression fall open. “With that face?”

Even when Minho scrunches it up, it’s still perfect. “My dad didn’t even want me to start training, he said it would get in the way of school. I had to prove I was serious.”

Jonghyun shakes his head at him, eyes falling back to the egg in his hands as he wedges his thumb between the shell and white. “You should have gone out with someone, Minho-yah, at least once. Now you never will.”

“What about Taeminnie, what is he supposed to do?”

“I don’t care about that stuff,” comes flying out of Taemin’s mouth.

“Yet.” Jonghyun sneaks a glance at him before Taemin can turn away. Somehow looking at him now is harder than when he was naked. “Tell hyung when you do.”

“Why would he want your advice? That’s asking for trouble,” Minho cuts in, but that’s enough to take Jonghyun’s eyes off Taemin.

He slumps down onto his side again, curling in on himself before pain flares up in his legs and he rolls onto his stomach instead, stretching out and smushing his nose against the rough surface of the mat while Jonghyun comes up with a retort.

“You just said you have no experience with girls, what do you know?”

“What do you? You’d teach him all the wrong things.”

“You and Kibummie have a lot in common,” Jonghyun says. “I never believed any of the rumors about either of you, but you both believed them about me.”

“What?” Minho says, loudly enough that the ahjumma a few mats over is probably glaring at them again. Then, lowering his voice, “What did people say about me?”

Nothing that Taemin ever heard, but Jonghyun is serious. “You didn’t know?”

It must have happened before Jongin came, just like Kibum’s fight. Taemin should be telling Minho those hyungs liked to talk shit about everyone, that even if they said the truth about Taemin they must have gotten Minho wrong like Kibum and Jonghyun, but even as the words crowd up his throat, it’s already too late.

“Never mind, I don’t want to now,” Minho is saying. “If they couldn’t say it to my face, it’s not worth hearing.”

That’s that, at least until Jonghyun says a minute later, “You could probably guess, anyway.”

“I’m not going to.”

“It wasn’t that bad, I meant. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s better than that.”

“I’m not thinking anything, hyung, I just said I wasn’t.”

“This is the most I’ve heard you talk in like two months,” is all Jonghyun has to say to that.

“This is the most you’ve annoyed me. Happy?”

Jonghyun just laughs. This time the sound is from another life, from before they were all picked and their days started grinding them to dust, clear and bright and happy, like bubbles in Taemin’s chest. He barely catches the smile as it forms, but it’s okay. Neither of them is looking.

“Did Taeminnie fall asleep again?” Minho says.

Taemin should probably sit up, or at least tell him no, but then Jonghyun’s hand lands on his head, sudden and warm, freezing him in place. 

“Leave him be. He’s tougher than he looks, but yesterday was really hard on him. This whole thing is going to be.” Jonghyun rubs his hand down Taemin’s back, tugging his shirt down where Taemin didn’t even realize it was riding up, but not before he pinches the soft skin there. It takes everything inside Taemin to lie still instead of squirming away. “Hyung peeled all these eggs for nothing. Stuff your face, Minho-yah.”

“Where are you going?”

Jonghyun’s words float down to Taemin’s ears as he stands. “To see if I can steal the remote. Watch Taeminnie.”

Taemin has been to places like these millions of times, but this could be the last. Once they debut, they might never be able to come here again or see any of the things he would see if he opened his eyes. Except when he does, just a crack, all he can see is Jonghyun. His back as he walks away, and then his face who knows how much later, when he shakes Taemin awake.

“Time to go, Taeminnie.”

He keeps saying that, but it’s his voice, so Taemin listens.


	16. Debut

The knock on the door only means one thing: chicken.

Chicken means many. Jinki told Minsoo hyung the grease would help their vocal cords and Kibum told Jinki, What a load of bullshit. It’ll make us bloat, hyung. For Jonghyun, it’s probably just a way to pass the time, since he was the one who decided to stay up all night to preserve his voice from all the junk that crawls up his throat while he’s lying in bed, whatever Kibum had to say about how dumb that was too. They would have gotten up at three a.m., anyway. And Taemin couldn’t sleep if he tried. Even if this is the first time he’s so much as smelled fried chicken since last summer sometime, wafting in from the doorway as Minsoo hyung pays, he might not be able to get it down, either.

Tomorrow is their debut stage.

“Move over, Taeminnie.”

Minho’s voice booms down at Taemin, so much louder than the television. Before Taemin’s muscles kick in, Jonghyun’s foot connects with his butt, scooching him across the wood floor and out of the way. They lay newspapers over what used to be his spot as Taemin climbs to his knees, then his feet when Jinki calls from the kitchen, “Help me with the glasses, Taemin-ah. Minsoo hyung got pop with it~”

Three whole liters. Minsoo hyung and Kibum cut them all off at one chicken, but even that much is enough to put the brightest smile on Jinki’s face that Taemin has seen since the morning Minsoo hyung told them that SM had decided on the twenty-fifth. That was two weeks ago. Since then the days have all stacked on top of each other, what feels like millions and millions of years teetering over him, and when Taemin lies awake at night it’s like he’s waiting for all that time to come crashing down on him. It’s the same for Jonghyun, which is probably why he slurps up the fizz as he fills Taemin’s glass, pouring until it’s about to spill over. He passes it over to Taemin with both hands, fingers brushing as Taemin takes it, both of them ignoring Kibum’s half-hearted, “You know how much caffeine that is? You’re trying to trap him into staying up with you.”

No one is stopping Kibum from getting himself water instead, but he takes the bottle from Jonghyun and fills his own glass to the brim, too. Taemin can never tell if he’s been sleeping, he doesn’t know what to listen for the way he does with Jonghyun. The only one who has for sure is Jinki. And Minsoo hyung. He doesn’t even stick around to eat, hovering over them long enough for Jinki to tear into his second piece and Jonghyun to pick out both legs for Taemin, before shuffling off to bed with one last, “If you get tired, sleep. You don’t know how long tomorrow is going to be.”

Minsoo hyung doesn’t know how long the last three years have been, either. Or how long tonight will be, especially since he starts snoring within fifteen minutes of his door clicking shut. Kibum and Minho fight over the remote, flipping channels faster than Taemin can keep up, but watching the screen is better than watching the others’ faces. He can feel Jonghyun’s eyes on his as he eats and the bones pile up between them, and when he drinks down his pop, it fizzes up in his stomach like the feeling under his skin.

It doesn’t pass, just fades in and out. Out when Jinki has picked off every last bit of breading and Minho wads up the newspaper and sweeps up all the microscopic crumbs he scolds Taemin for leaving, and then in again when Taemin returns from throwing it out and Jonghyun catches his eye, looking up at him. Taemin drops down beside him and glues his eyes to the TV, waiting for it to go out again, but he should have sat further away or something. With every breath he takes he can feel Jonghyun pressed along his side, warm and solid, and his voice is right in his ear.

At least he’s not talking to Taemin, not after Taemin took too long to come up with a reply on the first couple tries. Only Kibum can keep up with him, stories from their trainee days Taemin was there for, gossip from the kids who stayed on, rumors about the ones who dropped out, what they’re going to buy with their first paycheck, whether Jonghyun should have dyed his hair that color, if Song Hyekyo would look even prettier in person, if they’d ever get to see her that is, everything but the fact that they’re debuting tomorrow. And when they run out of stupid things to say, they turn to games instead. Would you rather, truth or dare, crazy hypotheticals, around and around and around. Minho says he won’t play right up until he does, and Jinki gives random answers when no one is even asking him.

Taemin should lie down and play dead, but Jonghyun can tell from his breathing if he’s sleeping, and the only part of him that’s even close are his legs, folded underneath him. All Taemin has to do is stretch his legs out, and four pairs of eyes are on him. Tomorrow there will be dozens, and once their stage goes on air, thousands. If anyone watches. What if they don’t?

“It’s the end of the world and there are only two humans left,” Kibum says to him. “You’re one of them. Who’s the other?”

One person? In the whole world?

Jonghyun’s hand lands on his head, sudden and warm. “Don’t think so hard, Taeminnie, just say whoever.”

Mom or Dad or Taewoo, but none of them would ever forgive him for picking them and leaving the other two behind, and maybe Taemin wouldn’t want to live, either. Tomorrow he’ll get to see them again.

Jonghyun is still petting Taemin’s hair, almost like he’s forgotten. “He doesn’t want to say Jonghyun hyung in case it makes the rest of you feel bad.”

“Does it have to be one of you?” Taemin blurts out.

His ears go hot and his stomach swoops, but Jonghyun doesn’t laugh at him.

Kibum does. “It’s not like it matters at that point. You couldn’t have babies, the human race would be doomed whoever you pick.”

“That almost felt like a compliment until you looked at me,” Jinki says.

Kibum’s mouth twists, halfway between a smile and a smirk. “I mean…would you pick yourself?”

“What about you, would you?” Minho butts in, but Jinki ignores him placidly, eyes on the TV.

“Not if I were you.” He says it so matter-of-factly it barely counts as a retort, and when he slots Taemin a glance from around Jonghyun, his eyes are crinkling up in a stupid smile. “If I were Taeminnie…”

Jonghyun leans in too, blocking Jinki out and turning Taemin’s face towards his, telling him, “I fed you for a whole year before you met him, you’re mine.”

“Don’t think about it in terms of loyalty, Taeminnie,” Kibum says over him, smile-smirk growing, “think about who would annoy you the least.”

“Pick someone who doesn’t boss you around,” Minho counters, just as Jonghyun’s finger pokes into Taemin’s side. When Taemin squirms away he runs up against Jonghyun himself, warm and solid and.

Kibum scoffs at Minho. “Telling him that is bossing him, just so you know.”

“Maybe he’d rather be alone,” Jinki says. “This is your chance to get rid of us all~”

Jonghyun’s eyes are burning into his face. He already knows what Taemin would say, so why is he asking? And Taemin already knows too, so why does telling him really feel like the end of the world?

“Then…” Taemin barely gets that one word out before Jonghyun leans in again. In the split second their eyes meet, something snaps inside Taemin. “Jong—” _hyunnie hyung,_ “innie.”

This time Jonghyun does laugh, sharp and ragged and too loud, that one that says it’s not funny. When he slips his hand up Taemin’s side to pinch his cheek, Taemin can’t even feel it. He can’t feel anything all of the sudden, this weird rushing numbness, but isn’t that feeling something? His ears are hot. His face, too.

Kibum is shaking his head at Taemin. “You two wouldn’t last a day on your own, you both need someone to take care of you.”

Moongyu wouldn’t be there to do it. Taemin would have killed him, too. And Soojung, even if Jongin doesn’t like her like that. And Jongin’s family.

“Would you pick Taeminnie, then?” Jinki says. “To save him from himself.”

Taemin doesn’t even want him to, he’d rather just die with everyone else. This game is so stupid, and so is Jonghyun, breathing down Taemin’s ear, eyes burning holes into the side of his face.

Kibum is shaking his head again. “Boa seonbaenim.”

He leans back on his hands, stretching his leg out to dig his toes into Jonghyun’s shin. That’s all it takes to send, “Son Yejin,” flying out of Jonghyun’s mouth. Taemin’s stomach balls up, so tight it feels like his chicken is going to come back up. The drumsticks Jonghyun gave him. One of the others must give Jonghyun a look, because he laughs that same laugh, saying, “What? Kibummie picked a girl.”

“I’m not dirty like you. I’m a fan.”

“She’s a good actress.”

Like he’s ever seen her in anything but shampoo CF’s. Taemin scoots away from Jonghyun, that fizzy feeling from before simmering up, but he’d have to leave the room to get out from under his eyes. Even as he climbs up onto the couch next to Minho they follow him, maybe because Kibum is saying, “What about you, Minho-yah? Park Jisung? No, what’s his face, the short one with the big nose.”

“Messi,” Minho corrects him immediately, drawing his legs up to give Taemin room, “and soccer takes eleven people. Twenty-two.” Then why does he go to the park to play by himself all the time? Then he catches the look on Minho’s face, and the question dies in his throat. “There’s no point doing one-on-one all the time, especially when one of them is me. The whole reason I ended up here is because I wasn’t good enough to go pro.”

In all the years they trained together, he never said. He told Taemin way, way back that being realistic about something didn’t mean he didn’t want to do it, but that goes both ways. Knowing he wasn’t good enough to keep playing soccer doesn’t mean he wanted to stop, but just because this was his second choice back then, doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to debut as badly as the rest of them, or that tomorrow isn’t the most important day in his life. Right? All Taemin knows for sure is that his heart is squeezing down into a ball as tight as his stomach a second ago.

“It’s just as well.” Kibum says it in the same voice as before, but into the silence it sounds different. “Your face is way too perfect for people not to want to ruin it, they would have been aiming balls to break your nose.”

“I’d go with Jinki hyung,” Minho says without cracking a smile. “He’s smart and kind, and he always listens to people.”

“And hyung?” Jonghyun prompts Jinki.

“Taeminnie.”

“He left us all to die, though,” Jonghyun reminds him. If Taemin could go back he’d choose Jinki, so there.

Jinki smiles up at him. “Still, Taeminnie.”

Jonghyun shoots Taemin a look, too, mouth thin, eyes narrow. “I guess you don’t need me anymore. The next time you want something hit Jinki hyung up.”

“Or me,” Kibum adds immediately, and just like that Jonghyun’s eyes are off Taemin again. Kibum laughs at the look he gives him, even as he amends, “Depending on what it is.”

“Me, too,” Minho says. He leans across the couch to pet Taemin’s hair, hand big and clumsy. “Seriously, Taemin-ah.”

They should all worry about themselves for once.

Taemin doesn’t know how to tell them that, though, least of all Jonghyun, so he goes and finds his phone and then hides in the bathroom instead. Their voices fade to a murmur once he shuts himself inside, and after the pale glow of the television, the bright yellow light blinds him. He doesn’t have to go or anything, so he leaves the toilet lid down and sinks onto it, reading the same words over and over again, waiting for them to sink in, to mean the same things they used to, to take him back to his old life, out of this dorm, out of tomorrow’s shadow. Back when this was only a dream and not reality.

_moongyu and me danced in the subway_

_not just practicing steps like u do, for real. i wasnt embarrassed until after._

_my mom started dyeing her hair_

_they said if i did they would shave my head. that was years ago maybe theyd say yes now_

_asked_

_they said i can when i go grey too_

_now they want to watch with me. my sisters too_

_inkigayo right_

_taeminnie, fighting!!_

Taemin doesn’t remember going to bed, but somehow Jinki is waking him up, this one time with a hand on his shoulder instead of his body crushing Taemin to the bed. Taemin stumbles off to shower, and for once he doesn’t have to wait. The water is cold, then warm, then burning hot, but Taemin can’t feel anything but the giant hole opening up inside him where his stomach should be. His face looks so plain in the bathroom mirror, and he already knows he’ll look the same in the waiting room mirror too. Not like an idol, like the same Taemin that got lost in the rain on the way to the training center three years ago. Today instead of taking the bus and train, Minsoo hyung drives him, and after the longest ride of his life, squashed between Jinki and Jonghyun in the backseat as the city rolls past on either side, there isn’t a single cloud in the sky. The moon shines down on them as they cross the parking lot, and Taemin has until they reach the waiting room to figure out how his legs work again, or else how is he supposed to dance with them later? The clothes Geunyoung noona gives him to wear are nothing like the clothes Jonghyun gave him that day, either, fresh and new, only meant to be worn this one day of his life. And the day they spent hours fitting everything, but that was different, that doesn’t count.

Maybe nothing before today does.

“Are you nervous?” Miran noona asks him as she does his makeup.

“Mm.”

That’s the one thing Taemin does know. So nervous he could die.

“You were last time, too.” She narrows her eyes at him. “Are you still this quiet when you’re not?”

“Taeminnie never talks,” Kibum tells her, darting the stupidest look he has at Taemin before the coordi noona working on his hair tugs him back in place.

“Is it because he can’t get a word in edgewise?” Miran noona shoots back, probably so Kibum will laugh like that, too loud in the early morning silence. She’s still smiling when she turns back to Taemin. “Don’t worry, Taemin-ah. They’ll give you time to rehearse on stage, and if you mess up, so what? They’ll just reshoot it.”

As she says it Taemin thinks he would rather die than go out there, but after half an hour in this room he would kill to get it over with. He can’t take another second of Jinki sitting still as death on the couch, Minho pacing back and forth, Kibum and Jonghyun going back and forth too, dropping down on either side of Taemin on the couch in the corner, talking and laughing, poking Taemin when he’s supposed to say something, petting his hair and rubbing his back when he doesn’t. And when they do get out finally, it’s not to go on stage, but to greet seonbaes. There aren’t many of them here this early, but with each door they stop and bow Taemin’s insides close in tighter and his head grows lighter, and once Minho realizes Taemin is hiding behind him, he clamps his arm around his shoulder, bringing him to the front. Even if Jonghyun had grown taller, he probably would have done the same thing, and when they all call Taemin cute, he’s the one who laughs and smiles and says, “Right? It’s not just his face, it’s everything.”

On the way back he says to Taemin, “They haven’t even seen you dance yet and they think you were born for this.“ And when Taemin doesn’t answer within two seconds, slinging his arm around Taemin’s shoulders and pulling him close, “They must be right~”

That one night years ago when Taemin asked Jonghyun if God picked him for singing, he said he didn’t believe in Him.

_I wasn’t born for anything, hyung. I was just born. God didn’t put me here. I did it to myself._

Even when here isn’t the waiting room anymore. Even when it’s backstage. They pass the monitors they’ll be checking at the end of every take, same as their MV, assistant PD’s barking orders and crew members scrambling to set everything up, people talking about things over Taemin’s head and doing things Taemin doesn’t understand everywhere he looks. Just over there are the stairs, and when Kibum goes to check, he tells them all they have fans. Taemin doesn’t understand that, either, not when Shinee hasn’t done anything, and all he can think is that they won’t anymore if he fucks up.

Jinki can’t think of anything, either, even after he’s drawn the four of them into a circle of arms, heads together, world pressing in on all sides, silence filling the space between them. Taemin can’t look any of them in the eyes so he stares at their feet instead, all in brand-new shoes. How are they supposed to dance in them? But it’s too late to ask the coordi noonas.

“There’s nothing I can say that you guys need to hear,” Jinki says finally, hand so warm and heavy on Taemin’s shoulder. “You already know everything.”

Taemin feels Kibum shake his head. “You’re the leader, hyung. Just say whatever, we’ll listen for once.”

“Then…let’s do our best.”

“Better than our best,” Minho says.

Taemin will. At least he’ll try his hardest, he’ll die trying if he has to.

“That’s too much pressure,” Kibum says. His hand squeezing Taemin’s shoulder says, _You’re shaking, Taemin-ah. Stop that._ “Don’t get too in your head, I mean. We know exactly what we have to do, we just have to do it. Now say fighting, or get Taeminnie to do it.”

He squeezes Taemin’s shoulder again, almost like he’s trying to force words out of him, but they won’t come.

“It’s because you’re so cute, Taemin-ah.” That again. Taemin raises his eyes to Jonghyun’s face before he can even think, and Jonghyun meets them in half a second. Whatever he sees has him biting back a smile, saying quickly, “Jinki hyung is cute, too. Hyung, you do it.”

“Instead of fighting, how about a chant?” Jinki says on cue. “We’re gonna be doing this a lot.”

“You mean the one you thought of before?” Kibum scoffs, catching on so much faster than Taemin. The one Jinki thought of in the van one day, stuck in traffic between schedules. Kibum coughs. Sighs. Gives in. “How did it go again?”

_One, two, one two three four, we’re coming, ultra Shinee transformation!!_

Taemin is still himself when he steps out onto the stage. The lights are blinding and if he looked into the crowd, he could see the faces of the people who came to see them, but as soon as Jonghyun touches his face, his world narrows back down to him.

“Just do it like you practiced, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun says, so quietly.

_None of those times I got it perfect count anymore, hyung. Maybe they never did. This is the one time that does. What if I fuck up?_

Taemin swallows hard. He doesn’t need Jonghyun to tell him he won’t. He just won’t.

“You too, hyung.”

The PD calls standby. No more talking. No more shaking. No more anything. Taemin takes one long deep breath until there’s no room for anything else inside him but air, then breathes out.

_How come you were late today? Sometimes new kids stop showing up._

_You really thought I would quit?_

_I didn’t think, I was worried. For nothing, I guess._

_I’m not how I look, hyung._

The music starts and Taemin’s body moves.

After.

It comes in degrees, take after take after take, until finally the music cuts, this one last time to cheering and applause. Someone’s hand—Jinki’s—lands on Taemin’s back, pushing him down so all he can see is his feet, and another hand is pulling him back. Jonghyun. As they bow their way off stage Taemin’s world turned upside down, and now that they’re backstage, somehow it won’t turn right-side up. Everything is so normal it’s crazy, exactly the way they left it. Even the hyungs are all the same, even their smiles. Taemin has seen these exact ones on their faces millions of times, over millions of dumb things none of them can remember, Jinki’s eyes disappearing, Jonghyun’s crinkling up, Minho’s whole face lighting up, Kibum complaining about how his is starting to hurt from smiling too much. Part of Taemin wants to run all the way to the training center and see if it’s still the same too, the vocal room where he first saw Jonghyun, the roof where he and Jinki sang, the convenience store where they all ate and the practice room they slept in together. Or maybe it’s just that everything is blurring together for Taemin. He can’t even feel his heartbeat, it’s going so fast it feels like it’s stopped.

“Taemin-ah, where are you going?” Jonghyun’s hands close around Taemin’s arms, turning him around. “This way.”

The dressing room is the other way, though, Taemin is sure. If nothing else has changed, there’s no way that could have, unless this is a dream. But Jonghyun is real, warm and solid against him, guiding him down the hall.

“Your parents are waiting in the lobby,” Minsoo hyung tells him.

Oh.

“Did you forget they were coming?” Kibum says from his other side. “I’m going to tell your mom that~”

Yes. No. Taemin doesn’t know. It felt like his whole life stopped once he stepped onto that stage, but now it’s like someone hit fast-forward, and he doesn’t know where to look, what to say, how to feel, which parts he should be memorizing, if he’ll remember any of this at all.

“Taemin-ah.”

_Mom._

And Dad and Taewoo. They look the same, too. The exact same. What about him, does he look any different to them? The last time they saw each other, he was too scared he’d show them his tears to talk for long, and now suddenly it’s his heart that’s overflowing. He doesn’t even realize that Jonghyun has let him go until he brushes against Taemin’s side, bending into a half-bow before Mom catches him up in a hug instead. She squeezes this weird sound out of him, half laugh half sob, and then he’s gone and it’s just the four of them, and the only things Taemin can think to say don’t matter. Mom pulls Taemin into her arms too, and for one moment every single thing in the world is okay. In the next she’s let him go, petting his hair, beaming at him. Dad sticks to questions he can answer, about school, practice, Jonghyun and the others, work. Because that’s what this is now. They took him in to sign his contract last winter, and now it’s spring. He debuted. He’s not a trainee anymore, he’s an idol. Shinee’s Taemin. This is real.

“You looked cool up there. Hyung kept wondering if that was really you.”

Taewoo never just says things, but he’s never said anything like that, either.

“The hyungs looked cooler, right?”

“I wasn’t joking, Taemin-ah,” Taewoo says in this weird voice. “I’m really proud of you.”

“We all are.” Dad scrubs his hand through Taemin’s hair, messing up Miran noona’s work. “What do you have to do after this?”

Because there’s still another after beyond this one. Who knows if it’s even six o’clock yet, and they’ll probably have stuff to do all day. Taewoo has to go to school, too. And Dad has to go to work, and even without Taemin there Mom still has a million things to do around the house, and maybe they’ll all get to watch Taemin again on TV later, the way Taemin used to watch Rain. And tomorrow on the next music show, and the day after that, the next, after after after.

But right now. Taemin breathes.

“Are you out of banchan yet, do you need more?” Mom says.

“No,” Taemin says, right as Kibum’s voice says from behind him, “Yes.” He ignores Taemin’s look to tell Mom, “He’s lying. Minho and Jinki hyung ate everything.”

For one second Taemin is scared Mom’s face will tighten with worry, before she breaks into her brightest smile yet, saying to Kibum, “I made it all for you to share. Is there anything you want more of? I already know Jonghyunnie and Taeminnie’s favorites.”

Kibum never came around Taemin’s house enough to have any himself, and he doesn’t pig out on anything in the dorm, either, but it doesn’t sound like a lie when he says, “Everything. Your cooking is so good.”

“Kibum hyung can cook, too.”

Kibum shoots Taemin a look like he was trying to get him in trouble or something, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Just fried eggs.”

“I don’t think I’ve met your parents, Kibum-ah,” Mom says. “Could you introduce me?”

Kibum sneaks another look at Taemin, eyes widening, _Don’t let me steal your parents, Taemin-ah,_ then narrowing. _Or use me to get rid of them. Who knows when you’ll see them again, or how much longer this time will be, even. _

Not Taemin, but the thought floats away as it forms. What will it take to send him crashing back to earth?

“My dad is trying to get my grandma on the phone and my mom went to the bathroom to wash up,” Kibum goes with. “She’s crying harder than Jonghyun hyung, even.”

What? Taemin swings around, eyes skipping over Minho and Jinki and their families and landing on Jonghyun, head down, shoulders hunched. One look at him is all it takes. Taemin’s feet are already carrying him across the room. His mom is patting his back and a girl who must be his noona is on his other side, smiling through Jonghyun’s tears, telling him things that would probably help. Nothing like, “What are you crying for?”

They all turn at the sound of Taemin’s voice. Jonghyun’s eyes are red and shining with tears and.

_We did it, hyung. This is your dream. You should be smiling, you should be happy._

“Because he’s him,” the girl next to Jonghyun says. When she smiles at Taemin, she looks just like Jonghyun, eyes crinkling up. “He’s always been like this, even when he was a baby he cried more than all the other babies. He doesn’t remember it, but I do~”

Jonghyun makes that same halfway noise Mom got out of him. “Soobin noona~”

Jonghyun’s mom laughs, eyes traveling between them before landing on Taemin. “You did so well, Taemin-ah.”

“I thought that must be you,” Soobin says, looking at him too. “They both talk about you all the time. You’re even prettier than he said.”

He told his girlfriend the same thing back then. Jiwon. Jonghyun is so dumb, but Taemin is dumber. His face still goes hot, and he’s left fumbling for words. “Hyung talks about you, too.”

She tilts her head, eyes sparkling. “Good things or bad things?”

“Things,” Jonghyun cuts in, voice like nothing Taemin has heard before, and all he can think is that it’s good Jonghyun kept it in until after he was done singing. When Soobin makes a face at him he can’t make one back, mouth twisting, brow drawn together, fresh tears streaming down his face.

“I watched but Soobinnie took pictures,” Jonghyun’s mom tells Taemin, patting Jonghyun’s back like before. “If they turn out well, we’ll pass them on to your mom.”

Taemin should go back to her. Before he can take one step, though, Jonghyun’s fingers close around his wrist, pulling him in, holding him tight, and in the circle of their arms the rest of the world disappears. Jonghyun’s face is wet, buried in Taemin’s neck, each breath so sharp against Taemin’s skin, and he’s pressed in so close maybe he can feel Taemin’s heart, beating like wings in his chest.

_Do you feel any different, hyung? Everything is the same, but nothing is. Even you._

It’s only one moment.

It’s forever.

And then it’s gone. Everyone else is there again and Taemin’s feet are on the ground.

Mom and Dad and Taewoo walk Taemin all the way back to the dressing room. Each step Taemin waits for his throat to tighten, the pit to open back up in his stomach, his heart to squeeze down and wring out all the months of tears he has saved up, but he’s still floating when Mom hugs him again. This time it’s goodbye. Dad scrubs his hand through his hair and Taewoo says over their shoulders, “Are there any girl groups promoting today~? I didn’t just come to see you.”

They don't disappear like bubbles. They talk and laugh and talk and laugh some more, and Mom hugs him again and again, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, saying it in every way but words. Just this one time, Taemin lets himself not say it at all. Finally he watches them walk away, and every time they turn to see if he's gone in and wave at him when they see he hasn't, he waves back. Smiles back. There were nights he missed them so badly he could die, and there will be nights like that again, and their voices don't sound the same on the phone...but right now, in this moment, none of that can touch him. Not even when they round the corner, out of sight. Gone. And all he has to do is turn and open the door, and he's not alone anymore. Jinki and Minho have already changed, flopped out on the couch in the corner, and Kibum walks in just as Taemin is pulling his own shirt back over his head. If his eyes are still red, Taemin can’t even imagine Jonghyun’s, if he’s even stopped crying yet. His mom won’t let him go until his last tear dries and he can smile through saying goodbye. But he barely drops down next to Jinki when Jinki says, “Did you see Jonghyunnie in the hallway? He left again after he changed, Minsoo hyung went to look for him just now. We have to greet PD-nim.”

If he’s not with his family…then fresh air. Taemin doesn’t know how to get up to the roof, and Jonghyun wouldn’t go out to wait in the van alone, so he tries the exit at the end of the hallway, the lot Minsoo hyung went out to smoke this morning, an eternity ago somehow. Dawn has only started to break, stars and moon fading, ghostly pale light playing over Jonghyun’s hair. At the slam of the door, he raises his head from his arms, watching as Taemin sinks down next to him, back sliding down the wall. There are tears in his eyes again. Still. He has more of them than anyone Taemin has ever met. When Taemin hugged him earlier it only made him cry harder, so he probably shouldn’t touch him now, right? And it’d probably just be weird if he pet Jonghyun’s hair or pinched his cheek or squeezed his shoulder, all the things Jonghyun thinks work on Taemin, when the thing that really does is Jonghyun being Jonghyun.

Taemin being Taemin always makes things worse, but he can’t be anyone else. In the end he says, “Jinki hyung said Minsoo hyung said we have stuff to do.”

“Shit.”

Jonghyun scrubs his hand over his eyes roughly, taking one deep, shuddering breath.

“Why did you come out here? You were already crying in there, we all saw you.”

“And you asked me why I was,” Jonghyun says, voice still stuffed up, too gentle to be an accusation. “That was three years of our lives in three minutes, Taemin-ah. Why aren’t you crying?”

Taemin isn’t the one who makes no sense. Or at least that’s what he thought, right up until his voice catches in his throat and he can barely get the words out. “Because I’m happy.”

The moment they stood on that stage, the weight of all that time should have been lifted. All the things they sacrificed, the nights they didn’t sleep, the things they didn’t do, the friends it barely hurts Taemin to remember anymore, that night Jonghyun’s father came for him, everything. This was their dream. Jonghyun should be happy, too.

Jonghyun gives him a watery smile. “Honestly, I don’t know what that word means.”

It was just the first one that came to mind for Taemin. Maybe he doesn’t, either. Or more like…

“I don’t get how you put feelings into words. I just feel them.” When Taemin sneaks a glance at Jonghyun, he gets caught in half a second. He should have expected that. He always does. “That makes no sense, right?”

“A lot of times words aren’t enough, anyway,” Jonghyun says, even though he’s the one who’s always telling Taemin to talk. His smile grows instead of fading, hitting Taemin like sunlight when the moon is still in the sky. “Even if they’re all we have. It’d be nice if you could just look into someone’s heart, wouldn’t it?”

Would it? A lot of the time Taemin’s feelings are there and gone, anyway, split second reactions, bright spots, bad moods, stupid things that take over his body for three seconds and then disappear like they were never there. And the things that do stay with him…maybe they’re not stupid, but he’s too stupid to understand them.

“I can look into mine and it doesn’t help.”

Taemin takes a deep, deep breath, the kind that makes everything fall into place for that one moment. The wall is rough even through his shirt, the pavement is dirty, the sky is staring down at him, the air smells like spring, he feels so weird in makeup, and this still counts as the most important moment of his life, and he’s never going to remember any of this. Except the look on Jonghyun’s face right now, if he looked for long enough. If he was brave enough to meet his eyes for longer than a few seconds. Instead he stares down at his shoes.

The only reason he says anything is because Jonghyun is waiting. “Just…we did it. We made it. We debuted.”

“And the world didn’t end.” Jonghyun hesitates. Then, in this weird voice, “Would you really not pick me? If it did.”

Oh. That.

Not oh. Taemin knew what he was talking about it before he even said it, almost, stomach fluttering, skin tingling. If he’s so stupid he tried to lie to himself, why can’t he be stupid enough to fall for it?

“You didn’t pick me either,” Taemin says before he can stop himself.

Who would over Son Yejin? Taemin’s just a skinny kid, a dongsaeng who follows him around, and she’s…her.

Taemin knew Jonghyun would pinch his cheek, too, but he sits still and lets it happen. It never hurts, yet lately it always does. “Kibummie already picked someone random, I just answered without thinking.”

And just like that, there’s a smile on Taemin’s face. Not the one from earlier, the one that belonged there. What if it looks as weird as it feels? He hugs his knees to his chest and hides his face in his arms. “I thought you would say Soobin noona or your mom.”

“Because you picked your family?” Jonghyun retorts immediately, but in the next moment his hand is in Taemin’s hair, big and warm. It’s not surprise that sends Taemin’s heart lurching in his chest, he expected that like everything else. “You couldn’t choose between them, right? I guess you can’t choose between me and the other hyungs, either.”

The smile-like thing grows. “I like Jonginnie better than all of you.”

“Taemin-ah~”

Jonghyun runs his finger over the tip of Taemin’s ear. He knows Taemin just as well as Taemin knows him. Does that mean he knows when it goes hot? He’ll see if it turns red, anyway, this is so dumb. Taemin lifts his head. It’s a mistake. There’s this look on his face Taemin has only seen once before, the last night he walked Taemin home and Taemin tried to say goodbye.

“I would choose you, if it were just the five of us,” Jonghyun says.

What if it weren’t?

Taemin’s heart thuds to a stop, then starts up again twice as fast. “I would choose you, too.”

Now that his tears have dried finally, Jonghyun is back to making faces at him. “Forget it. If you’re just saying it back, it doesn’t mean anything.”

Taemin breathes in. Breathes out. The sky is growing lighter and there are a hundred people who smoke on the other side of this door, and Minsoo hyung and the others too. Jonghyun’s eyes are narrowing at him, but in another second, he’ll reach out to pinch him again, both cheeks, still too gentle for Taemin to feel it. For this to feel real.

“It does,” Taemin says painfully. “I meant it.”

_Even if it weren’t just the five of us, if it were everyone in the world, I’d still choose you._

Jonghyun’s smile is like sunburst through the clouds.

“You can’t live without me,” he says. “Say Jonghyun hyung is the best. Say it.”

Would those words be enough?

“It doesn’t count when you tell me to say it, you just said.”

“And you said it did anyway.”

Taemin said it before, too. That he liked Jonghyun, that he was thankful for everything, that he was happy they debuted together, happy that they ended up here on the other side together, in this moment, even if he’d die for it to end already.

This time Jonghyun’s touch crashes down on Taemin like lightning, this bright white rush of light, burning through every single part of him all at once. It’s only his hand closing around Taemin’s elbow, drawing him up onto his feet with him, sliding up to his shoulder to turn Taemin around, towards the door. Away from him. The rest of the world can’t wait, not even for one second. Just one more.

Taemin has had a lot more than that. Seconds, minutes, days, months, years. Three of them.

“It’s okay, since it’s you,” Jonghyun tells him. It’s not. It’s really not. “Hyung knows your heart~”

For the first time, Taemin knows his own. This feeling filled him so slowly that he never even realized, but it has a name, too, same as all the others. Even if it’s nothing like anything he’s ever felt before, deeper inside him than he even knew existed. With every heartbeat, every breath, everything.

_I like you, hyung._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated the chapter count from 60 to 90. I tried to warn for this in my A/N at the beginning, but since that's such a huge increase, thought I should explain haha. My main outline for this fic is relatively barebones and broken down into 2-3 year chunks (2005-debut, 2008-9, 2010-11, 12-13, 14-15, and 16-17), and I find that it's expanding as I flesh out each section. The pre-debut arc ended up taking 5 more chapters than expected, and now that I've planned 2008-9 in greater detail, it's gone up 4 chapters as well. Right now I'm guessing that the remaining sections will expand at a similar rate, meaning there would be 25-30 more chapters. I'm sorry for being inconsistent and thank you to everyone who is taking a chance and reading this WIP. <333


	17. Schedule

“It wasn’t that bad, Taemin-ah.”

It was. Jinki must think he’s stupid if he thinks he doesn’t know that, as stupid as the smile Jinki shoots at him. Taemin turns to look out the window, watching the traffic crawl unseeingly. It was really bad.

“If it were, they would’ve let us do another take,” Minho says from the front seat.

He thinks Taemin is stupid too. They all do. PD-nim was behind schedule before they even stepped out on stage, so all they had time for was three takes one after the other, without monitoring their performance like the last few music shows let them. Somehow Taemin survived all those evals as a trainee without watching playback or getting to retry, but there weren’t cameras then, either, and all he had to stare at was his own face in the mirror, not a crowd of strangers waving balloons and cheering and watching his every move. His every mistake. Like the fact that he ended the performance today without his microphone.

Kibum sighs explosively in front of him, twisting around to swat at Taemin.

“Seriously, what are you so worried about? I’m the one who looked stupid.” Because he ended up with two. All those times Taemin practiced with Jongin and a water bottle, he only ever fucked up handing it over, never getting it back, but none of those times count. Only today does. Not just for Taemin, for Kibum and. “If you say I always do you’re going to get it.”

And Minho, who’s saying, “Like Taeminnie would.”

“I didn’t mean him,” Kibum retorts.

And for Jonghyun. As Minho and Kibum go back and forth, his eyes stay fixed on Taemin.

“He never says it, but he thinks it. We have telepathy now, I can tell by the way he looks at me when he thinks hyung is dumb.” Taemin’s heart constricts all on its own, face on fire, but he’s too slow to dodge when Jonghyun reaches back to pet his hair, fingertips brushing his cheek instead as Taemin wrenches away. “It’s cute, Taeminnie.”

That’s what he always says. He’d probably tell Taemin it was cute if he told him to shut up, stop talking to him, worry about himself, that he hated him.

That he likes him.

Taemin told him once before, back when neither of them knew what he meant. Jonghyun still doesn’t, and Taemin would die to stop him from finding out. The problem is that with every heartbeat, with every breath, every single second of Taemin’s life, he feels it, and Jonghyun is there for all of that. And he’s there every time Taemin fucks up, too. Like today. The same part of Taemin that shied away from his touch is dying at the loss of it, and the part that has him squashing his face up against the window is crushed when Jonghyun’s eyes leave his face and he hears his voice again and he’s back to talking to Kibum. He put all of himself into acting normal and doing well this morning, even with Jonghyun and this feeling both right there, and everyone saw how that went.

“Does anyone need to use the bathroom?” Minsoo hyung is saying.

When Jinki tickles his hand up Taemin’s side, Taemin ignores him. He doesn’t. He went and hid in the bathroom this morning for so long that he had to go in the end, and since PD-nim was running late, they are now too. They waited so long to greet him that Taemin wishes he could have slept.

“Do we have time to pull over?” Minho says. 

Kibum makes an impatient noise. “Do you have to go?”

“I do,” Jinki says loudly before Minho can reply. “Sorry, hyung, I drank too much water this morning.”

He keeps trying to fill up on it and Kibum keeps yelling at him not to. Taemin can’t remember the last time he felt full, but he can’t remember the last time he felt hungry either. Maybe he’s so hungry he’s not. When Minsoo hyung pulls into the next free parking spot on their side of the road, Taemin gets out because that’s easier than answering Jonghyun when he says, “It’s too hot to stay in the car, Taemin-ah, you’ll melt.” He has what feels like forever to regret it, because the convenience store bathroom is single person and Minho goes first. If he wandered up and down the aisles Jonghyun would just follow him, so he sinks down next to Jinki at the counter up front, staring out at the traffic instead of all the things Jinki isn’t allowed to eat anymore. As Jonghyun and Kibum's voices grow closer, Taemin doesn't look up. Or breathe at all, once he feels Jonghyun brush up against his other side, leaning in against the counter. Or listen, he wishes.

“If anyone looked stupid, it was me. My in-ear was hanging out the whole time,” Jonghyun says. Taemin didn’t even have one because he didn’t sing. He didn’t need his mic, either. Maybe he looks stupider with one than he did without. When Jonghyun reaches up to pet his hair, Taemin puts his head down and hides. “Go use the girls’ bathroom, Taemin-ah. No one will say anything if it’s you.”

What is that supposed to mean? Taemin’s stomach twists, face heating up along with the air trapped in his arms. “You’re the one who always wanted to when we slept in the practice room.”

Kibum squawks, and just like that, Jonghyun is too busy defending himself to remember Taemin exists, and Taemin is left alone, half wishing he could forget too. When Minho comes back, Kibum takes his turn, then Jonghyun. Jinki stays right where he is, knee pressing into Taemin’s under the counter. When Taemin looks up at him he shoots him the same smile as before, bright and stupid.

“You don’t really have to go, you just said you did,” Taemin guesses, but Jinki shakes his head.

“I’ve been holding it for so long I can’t feel anything down there anymore.”

Oh. All that time Taemin hid in the bathroom waiting for this feeling inside him to claw its way out, Jinki spent in the waiting room, not daring to leave in case PD-nim came. Being the leader sucks, and somehow that makes being himself suck even more. Makes this feeling feel even shittier.

“I’m sorry I fucked up,” Taemin says in a painful rush.

Jinki catches his eye, expression unchanging. “Not to me, right?”

“To everyone.” And to himself, the Taemin that practiced all that time and got it perfect, only to get it wrong now. “I just had to say it to someone.”

“Hyung is sorry, too. I’m the reason the other takes were worse than that one,” Jinki says, like he could even know that, when they didn’t get to check how they did. Jinki’s smile has gone a little funny. “And I’m the leader, but I couldn’t even ask for one more. I don’t know how to talk to these people.”

Taemin doesn’t know how to do any of this. Talking to strangers, smiling until his face hurts and then smiling some more, never sleeping or eating, the way his heart flutters whenever he looks at Jonghyun and the way it pounds like crazy whenever Jonghyun looks at him or touches him or just anything. Even when he can focus, the stuff he trained for is so much harder now that it’s for real, and somehow his days pass like dreams. He wakes up the next morning and forgets them.

“Where are we going again?”

To perform “Replay” somewhere, the thought of which has Taemin’s stomach eating itself. But where is somewhere?

Jinki doesn’t even try to think, just shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know.”

Taemin doesn’t, either.

Minsoo hyung gets them there with minutes to spare, and on the way out hours later, tells them tomorrow’s schedules. Inkigayo again, because somehow it’s been a week since their debut. Another live stage somewhere else, radio, fansign, and the rest of it is lost in the blackhole opening up inside Taemin.

Fansign.

They’re going to meet their fans. And talk to them. All these people Taemin doesn’t know. Even if they think they like him, they don’t know him either, and maybe they won’t after this, and he has nothing to say. What if he opens his mouth and that’s all that comes out? Nothing. Then he’ll just sit there and sign the album he didn’t make. His voice doesn’t appear on that, either.

By the time they get back to the dorm it’s one a.m. and Taemin’s stomach has turned to cement. Minsoo hyung isn’t supposed to let them eat at night, but he’s the one who heads straight for the kitchen, calling for Jinki to help him carry all the banchan to the table. That must include the ones Taemin’s mom dropped off the other day while Ahjumma was cleaning, which means they might all be gone by tomorrow, but Taemin wouldn’t be able to taste them anyway. He heads straight to bed, climbing under his blanket without changing into his pajamas. Geunyoung noona will kill him if he wrinkles this shirt, but SM needs him alive, so it’s probably okay. And Miran noona won’t be able to tell if he doesn’t wash his face or put on that skin cream she gave him, not for just one night. He can just lie here and wait for sleep to come.

If Jonghyun would just let him. As soon as the door snicks open, he knows. And he knows exactly what he’s going to say, too. “You aren’t hungry? _You?”_

And he knows his stomach is going to curl up into a ball, just another way his body no longer makes sense. He doesn’t lift his head from his pillow. “What about you?”

“Minsoo hyung always lets us eat in the morning, anyway.”

Instead of going away, Jonghyun’s footsteps carry him closer. Taemin has all the time in the world to curl up in a ball as tight as his stomach, wriggle out the bottom of his bed and go stuff his face with the others, but he lies frozen as Jinki’s mattress creaks, then his own. Jonghyun flips the blanket back and burrows in next to him. Taemin’s heart flies up his throat and everywhere they’re touching whites out, and he should be rolling away to safety, Jonghyun is going to feel his heart pounding, see how red his ears are. Or feel his face burning, when he replaces Taemin’s pillow with his arm, just like he used to do sometimes when they slept in the vocal room as trainees. Except it’s all different and wrong now. Taemin is. He doesn’t know where to look or what to do with his hands, how to tell Jonghyun he’s sixteen and he doesn’t need someone to hold him until he falls asleep.

“Stop thinking about it, Taemin-ah. It’s been all day.”

What? For one second Taemin can’t breathe, and then this morning hits him all over again, leaving him dizzy with relief. Taemin isn’t even lying when he says, “I’m not.”

Jonghyun’s eyes are open, Taemin can feel him staring. His skin is tingling.

“Is it tomorrow?” The fansign, he means. Again, it takes Taemin too long to get it, and Jonghyun is already going on, “Don’t worry about that, either. You’re so cute they won’t care what you say.”

Taemin’s stomach twists at his words, one normal feeling in all this craziness. Normal meaning shitty.

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Not to hyung, either?”

“I’m tired.”

Taemin’s brain is yelling at his body to roll away, but Jonghyun is so warm and solid he could die, and when he reaches up to pet Taemin’s hair, the feel of his hand draws Taemin’s eyes to his face. It hurts to look at him. Jonghyun’s brow furrows and his eyes narrow, reading Taemin’s face in seconds, and whatever he finds has him slipping his hand down to pinch his cheek.

“What’s that look for?” Jonghyun makes a big show of getting comfortable, sighing loudly, nestling impossibly closer, shutting his eyes. “I am too.”

It’s Taemin’s bed. There’s nothing stopping him from pushing and kicking Jonghyun until he rolls back onto Jinki’s bed, except Jonghyun’s arms slung over his shoulder and under his head, and his hair fanned out over the pillow and the curl of his eyelashes and his breath puffing against Taemin’s lips and.

“I don’t get how we have fans,” Taemin blurts out. “We haven’t done anything.”

The moment Jonghyun’s eyes open again he stops getting why he said that. Anything. For one second he’s lost in them, dark and endless, and then he’s squeezing his own shut so tight it hurts.

“It’s not about us, Taemin-ah. It’s about what they want us to be.” There’s a smile in Jonghyun’s voice when he accuses Taemin, “You’re thinking hyung is stupid again, huh. I could feel your look.” 

Wrong. Taemin is safe for another heartbeat.

“I just wanted to sing and dance, not all this other stuff,” Taemin says, before another twist of his stomach has him adding, “I know that’s not how it works.”

Jonghyun sighs. Or laughs? This little huffed breath. Taemin would have to look to know. “That’s all I wanted, too.”

“And to make money.”

This time it’s definitely a smile. “That’s obvious.”

“What do you want to do with it?”

As soon as Taemin says it he almost wants to take it back, because he knows already, he heard Jonghyun tell his father that night two years ago: support his mom and Soobin. Nothing’s changed since then, even if everything has.

“Not buy you food,” Jonghyun says. And then, “You were supposed to laugh.” He skims his hand down Taemin’s side and pokes his finger underneath his ribs, commanding him, “Laugh,” and maybe Taemin would have before, but his body is all different now too. There’s this weird fluttering thing inside him, fighting its way onto his face somehow. “Hyung will buy you hanwoo. Hm? Hm? Smile, at least.”

Taemin is.

“I’m going to buy a house for my family,” he says, turning his face into the pillow.

“Until then you’re stuck with me. Tomorrow I’ll buy you ice cream.”

_I’m not a baby, hyung,_ Taemin doesn’t say. _You don’t need to do stuff like that._

Seconds lengthen into minutes, minutes into…more minutes. It takes Jonghyun forever to fall asleep and the others will come in for bed long before. Kibum must be showering, there’s no way he’d eat this late, and any minute the door will open again and this time it won’t send Taemin’s heart racing, this time one of them will say, You have your own bed, don’t steal Taeminnie’s, and Jonghyun will get up and for the first time all day, Taemin will finally be alone.

But right now. His heart is pounding.

Jonghyun’s breathing is slow and even and he’s gone still, warm and heavy, and when Taemin takes a peek, the expression on Jonghyun’s face is softer than he’s ever seen.

Without opening his eyes, he says, “I’m not going anywhere, so go to sleep.” Taemin squeezes his shut again, so tight it hurts. “Hyung will be there the whole time tomorrow, too.”

That’s worse.

Way worse. Taemin ends up seated between him and Jinki, in the same order they’re always supposed to stand now. When Kibum first heard about that he said, _I don’t want fans who can’t tell us apart, how is that even a fan,_ but Minsoo hyung just shrugged like always and Minho countered, _people have to get to know us first,_ and Taemin stopped paying attention after that. It makes no difference, anyway. Jonghyun has been sticking to Taemin’s side for three years, no matter how hard Taemin pushed him away, and he’d still be sitting here right now, smiling and waving and talking to the fans in his line like he’s forgotten Taemin exists. Taemin’s heart won’t let him forget himself, beating so fast it blurs. Everything does. Their faces, their voices, his own. Kibum and Jonghyun spent the whole van ride over coaching him, but everything they told him to say is so jumbled up he barely knows what’s coming out, and listening to Jinki and Jonghyun can’t save him. Jinki keeps greeting fans as Tofu Leader Onew, but bling bling never once crosses Jonghyun’s lips. Which is right? Hello, I’m Shinee’s maknae Taemin. Shinee’s makdoongie Taemin. Shinee’s Taemin. Taemin.

_I’m no one._

Taemin wishes he were. But he keeps breathing somehow, and fans keep coming. How are you, thank you for supporting us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Those words mean less to Taemin every time he says them when they should mean more, but no matter what they say to him, thank you. _Aigoooo, you’re so cute. What to do, your hands are smaller than mine~. You look like an angel, but you must be tired of hearing that. You’re so pretty. You’re my baby from now on, noona will raise you well. What is like living with the other members? What are they like when girls aren’t around, are they the same?_

“What kind of girl does Jonghyun oppa like?”

What is she asking Taemin for when Jonghyun is right there? Probably because he’s too busy telling another fan, “I haven’t even talked to a girl in three months~”

Are Soobin and his mom men? And the coordi noonas and staff people and the last ten girls in Jonghyun’s line, who he probably told the same thing.

“Anyone is fine,” Taemin tells her.

“He doesn’t even have a type?” she presses him.

Taemin has years of Jonghyun telling Taewoo about girls and trying to tell Taemin about Jiwon, and he likes all the same actresses they all like. Older, sexy, big boobs—

_The opposite of me._

“Noonas,” Taemin goes with, ears burning hot and stomach twisting up tighter. She looks like she is one, whatever she called Jonghyun, so that should be good enough, but somehow it’s not.

“What about looks?”

“Short hair.”

She flips hers over her shoulder as she leans in. “I can cut it~. What else?”

The one time Taemin saw Jiwon was half a year ago and he spent most of it not looking her in the face, but all he has to do is blink and she’s there.

“I’ve only met one of his—”

“He cares more about personality,” Jinki says over him loudly, saving him from his mistake. “If he thinks someone is cute, then they start to look cute too. Something like that?”

It’s the other way around, if Jonghyun thinks a girl is hot he decides he likes everything else about her, but Taemin bites his tongue until he tastes blood, and the next noona sits down across from him. She must have curled her hair this morning, and she’s wearing a dress that looks like something Mom would sigh over in a commercial, frilly and purple. Before Taemin can say a word, she slides something across the table towards him. A lunchbox.

“I thought you must be tired from working so hard,” she says. “Have strength, Taemin-ah.”

The words stick in his throat after so many times, but maybe it’s because he’s back to meaning them again: “Thank you.”

She smiles.

“Don’t share it with the others unless you want to. Noona made it all for you~”

It ends up in the trash.

“Company policy, Taemin-ah,” Minsoo hyung tells him on the way home that night.

Not home. The dorm. Taemin’s head hits his window with a thunk. He was quick enough to squeeze into the backseat with Jinki again, but that doesn’t stop Jonghyun from looking back at him every five seconds, or Kibum from saying, “Because of what happened with Yunho seonbaenim, right? When that girl fed him super glue—”

Kibum cuts himself off, but it’s not his words that have Taemin’s insides twisting up, it’s the half-glance he throws back at Taemin. Like he doesn’t know that story too, like he’s a baby who can’t handle hearing shit like that. And the way Kibum doesn’t let it go, long long after Taemin already has, out into the twilit night and up the stairs and into the dorm.

“What did she make?” Kibum asks as they crowd into the entryway. “If it’s not too fancy, hyung will make it for you sometime.”

“I never opened it.”

He didn’t get the chance. Once she left there were other fans, and once they were gone, Minsoo hyung was there to throw it out. It was probably as pretty as her dress, but it wouldn’t have tasted like anything. Even Mom’s banchan doesn’t these days.

“Then what do you want to eat?” Jonghyun cuts in. They just kicked off their shoes, but he grabs Taemin’s arm before he can step out into the hallway, telling him, “Hyung will buy it for you.”

Last night he said he’d buy Taemin ice cream, and now Taemin is left wishing that he was the one who forgot. When he yanks away, he breaks free of Jonghyun’s hold like it’s nothing, and he only makes it as far as the couch before this stupid awful feeling rises up in him. Even if he’d made it as far as his bed, he would still open his eyes to see Jonghyun frowning down at him. He never leaves Taemin alone. He let go so easily just now, why can’t he follow Jinki into the kitchen or take the remote from Minho before he checks the sports scores or cut in front of Kibum before he hogs the bathroom for his usual ten million years? Why is it so hard for him to leave Taemin alone?

“I’m not hungry,” Taemin shouldn’t have to tell him.

Jonghyun drops down onto the couch next to Taemin. He should have stretched his legs out to the end of the couch to stop him, but now he curls them up to his chest, as far away from Jonghyun he can get while he finds it in himself to get up again, but it’s still too close. His heart is just as stupid as the rest of him, going a million miles an hour over those few inches.

“I can cook too, Kibummie’s not the only one,” Jonghyun says heedlessly. “Does Taeminnie want tteokbokki~? I learned my mom’s recipe before I left.”

“I’m not hungry, I said.”

“For the second night in a row.” Jonghyun leans over to catch Taemin’s eye again. “That must be some kind of world record. You have to eat, Taemin-ah.”

“You sound like my mom.”

At the sound of Kibum’s scoff Taemin starts upright, tearing his gaze away from Jonghyun to see Kibum standing over him. Since when has he been listening?

“She’d say a lot worse if she could see you now. Aigoo.” Kibum is giving him that look that means he’s too dumb to survive on his own. “Starve if you want, just don’t complain later.”

He walks off, still shaking his head at Taemin. Before Taemin can follow, before he can even think, Jonghyun leans over to pinch both his cheeks.

“I’m just worried about what will happen to these.” His touch sends Taemin’s face so hot he can barely feel its warmth, and his hands are too gentle to hurt as he stretches his cheeks, which doesn’t explain the way Taemin’s feelings rip in half at the first pull. Or why everything inside him crumples up when Jonghyun pushes his thumbs into his cheeks and smushes his face in so that his lips pucker and his eyes disappear. His smile hurts more than all that. His laugh. “No matter how ugly I make you, you only look cuter~”

_You’re so cute they won’t care what you say._

“You don’t care what I say, either.”

“What?”

What is right. What the fuck is Taemin saying, what is coming out of his mouth, what. “Don’t hit on our fans.”

_“What?”_

Taemin should shut up. It was so easy to break free of Jonghyun before, he should break free now, not stand here and let Jonghyun’s hands hold him together, big and warm and solid, let him watch every tiny flicker in Taemin’s expression that he can’t control. See everything. Nothing.

“Why did you even break up with her if you were going to hit on them?”

For a split second that puts a question on Jonghyun’s face that Taemin would rather die than answer, _Choi Jiwon, your girlfriend, you said she was pretty and you still liked her even after she laughed at you. Even after you broke up with her, you still did. Even now, maybe you still do._ But the corners of Jonghyun’s mouth are twitching up and he smushes Taemin’s cheeks again, with his palms this time, warm and firm and. And he’s back to laughing at Taemin.

“I was being nice to them, Taemin-ah. If that counts as hitting on them then I hit on you all the time. All hyung does is hit on you~”

Taemin’s whole body flashes so hot it goes numb.

“Since all you do is be nice to me,” his voice says.

“If you’d let me,” Jonghyun says. “Hm? Hmm?” His hands fall to Taemin’s shoulders, turning him around, twisting his legs up under him, which is how Taemin remembers he even has them. “Let’s go to the store, come on. You never realize how hungry you are until you start to eat.”

“I’m fucking tired.”

Taemin pushes past him blindly and only breathes again once his face hits his pillow, fast and sharp and tight, like a knife between his ribs. Every single muscle in his body is screwed up against the door opening and Jonghyun’s voice finding him again, but somehow it gets worse as seconds pass in silence, then minutes, and then.

“Just leave me alone, hyung,” Taemin bursts out, “I said I’m fucking tired, I just want to sleep.”

Taemin barely hears his own voice before everything else slams to a stop inside him, and he’s turning over to explain or apologize or escape or.

It’s Minho.

“I thought you were Jonghyunnie hyung,” Taemin says dumbly.

“I just came in here to get this.”

His soccer ball, black and white and brown and green, stained with grass and dirt. When they got in it was…nine? Or something. Early for them, late for anyone else. The light is lasting longer and longer, but that just means it’s darker when they get up, and Minho needs more sleep than the rest of them put together. He always falls asleep first and crashes the hardest, but he’s the only one who still hasn’t blacked out or learned to sleep in the van between schedules. But Minho would have already thought of all that when he came in here, and of all the things Kibum will have to say about it if he’s hard to wake up tomorrow, so who is Taemin to stop him when he tucks it under his arm and heads for the door. Instead he follows him, ignoring Jonghyun as he calls after him, _Where are you going, Taemin-ah, Minho-yah. I thought you were going to bed, you said you were tired,_ letting Minho answer the parts aimed at him while he shoves his feet into his shoes. The door to the dorm isn’t like their bedroom. Even when Minho catches it before it can slam shut behind them, it’s so much louder, deep and heavy and final. So is the click of the lock.

The park is only a few blocks away and they kick the ball around for what feels like eons, following rules only Minho knows, but long before Minho tires, he lets Taemin escape to the nearest bench, following him across the grass instead of calling him back. His breathing is still so light when he drops down next to Taemin and traps the ball under one foot, not in the least winded from all the running they just did. Maybe it’s because Taemin has been running for so long that he can’t breathe. Ever since Jonghyun pulled the door to the lot open and Taemin stepped back inside, nothing has stopped, not promotions or school or practice, and not his heart. The sky is the same now as it was that morning, in between day and night, but this time it will get darker instead of lighter.

“You want to know something funny?” Minho says. He gives Taemin a few seconds to say yes instead of just telling him like he will anyway, then nudges him. “You could at least pretend to be curious.”

“If I try to fit one more thing I feel like my head is gonna explode. Sorry, hyung.”

“Somehow after two years I’m still not used to being called that.” Huh? When Taemin looks up at him, Minho smiles. Not the megawatt smile he’s learned to turn on for the cameras, smaller and fainter. Real. “I was the maknae everywhere I went until I started training. My soccer team, my family, even my friends, since I was born so late in the year.”

“How is that funny?”

Minho makes a face, another one the cameras will never catch. He still looks perfect.

“Because I resented you at first,” he says.

“I’d rather be the hyung than the dongsaeng. You want to switch?”

Then the hyungs can boss Minho around all the time and ignore everything he says, and his opinions won’t count for anything either, and Jonghyun can act like he’s too dumb to do anything on his own, and.

“At first, I said,” Minho says quickly, shaking his head at Taemin. He hesitates. “Then I thought I would be the best hyung I could to you.”

That’s so like him Taemin’s first instinct to is to laugh, but it sticks in his throat somehow, and the rest of him fills up with this weird feeling that’s lost in the middle between happiness and sadness, good and bad, up and down. For the first time all week his heart is back to making no sense to him. Back to normal. It’s not like Minho said anything weird. A million different hyungs would have said the same thing to a million different dongsaengs, maybe even Taemin will someday. But none of them would have meant it as much.

“You can just be yourself, hyung.” Taemin means this too. So much it hurts all of the sudden. “You don’t have to try so hard.”

“I do, though,” Minho contradicts him immediately. “That’s just who I am. You of all people should get that.”

“I only try hard for things that matter.”

Taemin doesn’t realize how that sounds until it’s out of his mouth, but it barely hangs in the air between them before Minho’s perfect face cracks wide open and he laughs out loud, this high-pitched cackle that shoots up to the moon, which smiles back at them, bright and full. Taemin’s own laughter takes him by surprise, and it sounds just as dumb, rising up in his throat like hiccups.

Before Taemin can hide behind his hands, Minho pinches his cheek to stretch his smile, getting, “No matter how hard I try, I can’t get people right,” out of him. “Sometimes trying harder makes it worse.”

“You’re cute either way.” Minho smiles again at the look on his face, but it fades almost as it forms, and he lets Taemin go, hand dropping down onto the bench between them. Taemin’s eyes drop further, to their shoes. Minho’s are so much bigger than his somehow. Even if Taemin hits a growth spurt he’ll never catch up. “Sorry, you didn’t want to hear that, right?” He nudges his shoulder into Taemin’s. “Mm? You hate being called cute?”

_It’s cute, Taeminnie. You’re so cute they won’t care what you say. No matter how ugly I make you, you only look cuter~_

“Mm.”

It feels like a lie but sounds like it’s not.

“Too bad, because you are. You’re really cute.” Minho hesitates, probably trying to figure out how to say this. Taemin doesn’t try to want to hear it. Just digs his shoe into the dirt at their feet and waits. “You should always make an effort, Taemin-ah. Even when you make mistakes, if your intentions are good, people will feel your sincerity.”

Is it really that simple?

“What about when you don’t want them to?” Taemin says.

“What?”

Minho wouldn’t need to ask if he knew what was in Taemin’s head, but the thought of trying to put it into words has Taemin’s heart pounding. “Nothing.”

“If it were nothing you wouldn’t have said it,” Minho says, shooting Taemin another look. “You don’t have to talk to me, Taemin-ah, but I’m here if you do.”

He’s the only one who is. For the first time all day, Taemin got far enough away from Jonghyun that his eyes won’t follow him everywhere, and if he says something now, the words might float up to the stars like Minho’s laugh did, and Taemin won’t have to take them back with him to the dorm, crumpled up in his chest. And Minho said he’s never dated before, he doesn’t know anything about that stuff, so maybe he won’t get it anyway.

“If you don’t want someone to know your feelings,” Taemin starts up haltingly, heart taking off. “Like when you look at them or talk to them or whatever. How do you hide what you’re feeling?”

“That’s different,” Minho answers immediately, without even thinking about it. “It’s not like people are inside your head, Taemin-ah. If they don’t know what to look for, they won’t know, no matter how obvious you are.” Taemin’s stomach shouldn’t be twisting up tighter at those words, his heart shouldn’t be hurting like this, when he’d rather die than get found out. Minho is saying he’s safe. Jonghyun won’t know. He’d never think of Taemin like that. Minho is studying Taemin’s face, eyes narrowing like an accusation. “Do you like someone?”

“What? No.”

Taemin lives and dies in the two seconds it takes Minho to frown and nod and allow, “We haven’t even seen a girl in months, unless it’s at school,” but his expression doesn’t change, and Taemin only breathes again when he takes another guess. “Do you hate someone, then?”

Taemin knows he’s saying the wrong thing this time: “You.”

Minho laughs again. People walk by eating street food that smells like Taemin’s old life, cars pass in a stream of headlights, and a group of ahjussis take over the field where he and Taemin played, kicking a ball around in their work clothes. Taemin is still wearing his, too. Geunyoung noona has come to do wardrobe at the dorm for the past few weeks to save time, and Taemin walked out before changing, and no matter how hard it is to get himself to move, he still has to go back and dodge their questions and brush his teeth and wash his face and go to bed. And wake up tomorrow, if his ears stop listening for Jonghyun’s every tiny movement and his heart slows down long enough for him to sleep.

And before all that, they have to get up.

“Taemin-ah.”

“Mm.”

“I know you only came out here to get out of the dorm, but come play with me sometimes.”

Why would Minho even want him to? He sucks at soccer, and he sucks at talking. “I guess I make you look better~”

The exact wrong thing again. Minho doesn’t hold it against him, though, just says, “I’ll teach you.”

And he probably wouldn’t give up on Taemin until Taemin was better than him, but the world would end first. Taemin is so tired as it is.

“I’ll come if you don’t teach me. Just let me be bad at it.”

“Taemin-ah~”

“I want one thing I don’t have to try at.”

_It’s not a girl, hyung. It’s Jonghyunnie hyung. He knows me way better than you, and I don’t know how to hide anything from him, and even if you’re right, even if I don’t have to, even if he’ll never figure it out, that’s worse somehow. He thinks there’s something wrong and I don’t know how to tell him that it’s him._

It’s not, though. It’s Taemin. He’s the one who feels like this and he’s the one who can’t make himself stop. He should have gotten crushes on girls, or at least looked at them, or talked about them with Jongin and Moongyu, or something. If he were Jonghyun he would have had his first love and his first kiss and his first time years ago already, but he’s not, so instead he’s sitting here on this bench with Minho in the middle of the night, while Jonghyun waits for him to come back in one piece.

_I didn’t know this stuff was so hard. It’s making everything else harder, too._

“Taeminnie,” Minho says again.

“What?”

“I know I can’t beat Jonghyunnie hyung, I’m okay being second best,” is as far as Taemin lets him get, heart hammering like crazy.

“I met Jinki hyung before you.”

Taemin stands up and starts walking. Minho was lying, anyway, there’s no way he could settle, not for anything, but he scrambles to his feet too.

“Taemin-ah~”

“And Kibum hyung cooks me food.”

Minho catches his arm as they hit the sidewalk on the edge of the park.

“I can buy you something better than that,” he says. “What does Taeminnie feel like eating~?”

“Nothing.”

This time it’s the truth, but when Minho doesn’t believe him, Taemin lets himself be dragged past the dorm to the convenience store on the corner, and his own feet take him to the freezer section in the back. He first met Jonghyun in spring, but the first time Jonghyun told him he’d buy him whatever he wanted, it was a night just like this, hot and sticky, before Taemin even knew how much Jonghyun hated summer. Taemin can’t remember what they ate or if it was any of the ice cream brands staring up at him now, just that he was scared to pick anything. That was before he knew how much Jonghyun meant it. Whatever Taemin wants. Anything.

The dorm is only half a block back, too close for anything to melt before they get there, and they have everything Jonghyun likes. Taemin eats his ice cream bar on the way home, huge bites that freeze his brain but not his heart and have Minho saying, “Yah, slow down, Taemin-ah, take your time. If Minsoo hyung says anything hyung will take the blame.”

Taemin throws the popsicle stick into the trash outside their building and lets Minho give Jonghyun his ice cream, ignores Jonghyun’s, “Did you score against him?” and, “You couldn’t wait five seconds to eat with us,” and, “Taemin-ah,” and goes straight to bed. And lies there and doesn’t listen for Jonghyun’s footsteps, the door snicking shut behind him, the creak of Jinki’s mattress as Jonghyun crawls in next to him and throws his arm over Taemin, the whisper of his hair across Taemin’s pillow, his breath puffing against Taemin’s lips, Jonghyun’s voice in his ear. _Stop worrying so much, Taemin-ah. You have me._

Taemin rolls over onto his back, heart slamming up his throat. Hours and hours and hours later, long after it’s back to where it’s supposed to be, doing the things it’s supposed to do, beating like normal, he’s still lying here, waiting for sleep.

_You never say stuff you don’t mean, hyung. It just means too much to me._


	18. Appearance

“I look like a man.”

Taemin tears his eyes away from his own reflection at the sound of Jonghyun’s voice. He’s standing next to Taemin in front of the mirror, grimacing as he combs his fingers frantically through the plastic wig one of the crew noonas gave him to wear. Taemin’s is shorter than his real hair almost, ends tickling his chin whenever he turns his head, but Jonghyun’s is all the way down to his shoulders. He just looks like himself in it.

Taemin does, too. Miran noona finished his face in half the time it normally takes for music shows, and she hasn’t touched him up at all since they changed out of the outfits Geunyoung noona picked and into the skirts and stockings the staff gave them. This is as close to bare faced as Taemin has been in an eternity of schedules. The problem is when he looks in the mirror, a girl stares back at him.

“Don’t stand next to me, Taemin-ah, you’re making me look bad. Worse. Whatever.” Kibum’s shoulder pushes into Taemin’s as he leans this way and that, checking his angles, eyeing himself critically, before he gives up and makes a face. “If I’d known we’d end up like this I would have brought a razor to shave again.”

If Taemin had known…nothing. He already laid awake all night last night with his stomach churning and his skin crawling, and whenever he put his head down in class this morning, that feeling came for him again instead of sleep. And again, when Minsoo hyung told them they were filming at an all girls’ school on the way over here, and Jonghyun spent the whole ride over telling them about the times he visited his sister’s school and her classmates filled the halls to get a look at him, the only boy in sight. Taemin spent it trying not to wonder if one of them was Choi Jiwon, if that’s how they met, and then telling himself to stop caring, since he knows how they broke up.

By the time they got here, Taemin was dying to get out into the open air, but only halfway across the parking lot, it felt like he really would. Somehow he made it through “Replay” and the fan meeting and the S-line competition, watching Jonghyun watch girls do sexy dances. When the last bell rang, they came up to the second floor classrooms while the school emptied out, just the five of them and the MC – Kisoo hyung – and the crew. And the cameras. PD-nim kept them running until the sun set outside the windows, telling them every five minutes, _Don’t tell the truth if it’s boring. Or at least tell it in an interesting way. All I hear is Kibum’s voice, don’t any of the rest of you have personalities? Don’t fidget, sit up straight, you’re rookies, people don’t want to see attitude. Look at the camera. Say something, Taemin-ah. Smile, at least. Good. Act cute. Aegyo. Stronger. Okay._

When he finally yelled cut, Taemin went so numb with relief he still can’t feel anything. Neither can the girl in the mirror. When he takes a deep breath, she does too.

“You've never done this before, right, Taeminnie?”

Cross dressing, Minho means. He pushes off the wall in the corner to come up to them. Checking his own reflection once was enough for him, but he smiles at Taemin in the mirror.

“It better be your first time, just look at you,” Kibum says, so quickly he even beats the _NO_ rising inside Taemin like a wall. “What kind of girl walks like that?”

Taemin has never met one like Minho, but he barely knows any. Behind them, Jinki keeps pacing, shuffling his feet, testing his falsetto, clearing his throat, back and forth and back and forth. Jonghyun’s eyes stay fixed on Taemin in the mirror.

“I’ve done it as a joke once.” He hesitates, lip caught between his teeth. “If I didn’t know it was you, I would have thought we got to film with a girl group member.”

Taemin’s stomach flips over and his ears burn, feelings flashing too hot to tell if it hurts. He should be used to his body not making sense by now, but before he can even catch up to himself Kibum is laughing at him, saying, “What’s that look for? You get called pretty so much you’re tired of it, huh.”

“Jonghyunnie says it so much it probably lost its meaning,” Jinki says from behind them.

“I meant it,” Jonghyun tells Taemin immediately, catching his eye in the mirror. “You’re really pretty, Taemin-ah.”

It means too much.

He tears himself away from Jonghyun’s gaze, but before he can take one step away he runs up against the real Jonghyun, so warm and solid he almost takes Taemin’s legs out from under him. Kibum’s hands close over his shoulders, keeping him on his feet, guiding him towards the bathroom door. “Just don’t stand next to the female staff, or they’ll start to hate you. I already do.”

They find Minsoo hyung on the other side of the door, about to fetch them. Half the crew has filtered out into the hallway as he leads them back down it, but PD-nim and Writer-nim and their teams are still in the classroom with Kisoo hyung. It took hours and hours of filming for him to stop looking scary to Taemin, but now that he’s become Kiyoung unnie he probably should look even scarier, red lips and miles of hairy legs, stringy black hair falling down his back like Sadako. He’s supposed to kill them all. Or kidnap them or something.

“You’re the most popular girl in school,” the assistant writer tells Taemin. “Your name is Taeyeon.”

“Like Taeyeon noona?”

“I didn’t even get to keep my own name but Taeminnie can just take hers?” Kibum huffs, all for show. It does no good, the butterflies in Taemin’s stomach aren’t laughter. He’s going to be sick.

“This segment was supposed to be funny,” the assistant writer says. She narrows her eyes at Taemin. “You didn’t tell us you had a secret weapon.”

Taemin’s stomach twists up, but Kibum is there again, this time to say, “Don’t worry, there’s still the rest of us. And Kisoo hyung.”

“It works out better this way, we just need to adjust the script a little,” Writer-nim cuts in, eyes skipping over Kibum to land on Taemin too. “Taemin-ah.”

Kibum squeezes Taemin’s shoulders. Taemin half nods, half bows, everything jumbling up inside him, but the right word comes out for once: “Yes.”

“You be the heroine.”

“What?”

The exact wrong word. Writer-nim barely blinks, black eyes fixed on Taemin’s face. They aren’t as dark as the circles under them. If Taemin and the others haven’t slept in the weeks since “Replay” dropped, she’s gone years and years without. She’s probably dealt with a hundred Taemins in that time.

“It won’t change much,” she says, half to Taemin, half to PD-nim. “We’ll swap it around so that you’re the last one standing, which gives you a few more lines and an extra scene or two on your own.”

_You saw me before, I can barely film with the others. I’m useless on my own. I’m not funny. I can’t act. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t want to, please don’t make me, pick one of the hyungs. Kibum hyung would do better than me, or Jonghyunnie hyung—_

Jonghyun’s hand lands on Taemin’s back, big and warm and sudden, snapping his spine straight and closing Taemin’s throat before any of that can spill out. Taemin bites his lip until he tastes blood, letting the assistant PD tell him, “Think about it as your chance to stand out. You must be tired of being the maknae and doing what your hyungs say all the time, now you get to be the star~”

When they first gave them their skirts, Minsoo hyung tried, _The company okayed this?_ and PD-nim answered, _Is this the kind of thing they need to okay?_ Taemin’s stomach balls up as Minsoo hyung glances at him now, and he already knows it’s useless when he starts up, “That kind of thing won’t work on Taeminnie, he’s a good kid.”

“Then think of it as using your advantages to put your group ahead,” PD-nim says this time. “This should be a hot issue once the show airs.”

Heat creeps into Taemin’s face, not white hot like before. Dull. Numb. “That I look like a girl?”

The assistant writer smiles encouragingly. “That you’re prettier than one.”

She glances around for reinforcement, like this is something Taemin wants to hear. One of the crew hyungs pauses in adjusting the sound equipment to add, “He’s girl group member level.” Jonghyun said the same thing before, but again, it’s different. Worse. Taemin doesn’t know, the only thing he can feel is Jonghyun’s hand, burning into his skin through his shirt. “When I heard Shinee was guesting, I regretted coming in to work. Not anymore~”

That’s only the second thing he’s said to Taemin. The first was, _Yah, maknae, speak up. Your mic isn’t picking anything up._

The hyung next to him smiles. “He reminds me of my first love~”

“Mine too. The same cute face.”

“For me, it’s the innocence.”

Jonghyun’s hand slides over to close around Taemin’s hip, pulling him into his side, sending Taemin’s eyes flying to his face. His eyes are narrowed under his wig and his mouth is bitten into one long thin line. He opens it and—

“I’ll do it,” shoots out of Taemin. He has to, whatever Jonghyun would have said. He ignores the look Jonghyun throws him, keeping his eyes on Writer-nim’s face. “I can do it.”

He tries, at least. The camera follows him everywhere and so do the crew members’ eyes. Even in the scenes with the others, he can’t hide behind them or fade into the background, when he would give anything to have PD-nim forget he exists for more than a second. In the classroom, his desk is in front of all of theirs, but every time PD-nim yells cut and he walks through the door again, he forgets which one. Maybe it doesn’t matter. The way he sits does, though. _Keep your legs closed, Taemin-ah._ And the way he talks. _More attitude. You’re annoyed you’re late because of that oppa stalking you. Is it a crime to be pretty?_ Taemin doesn’t know how to tell them he’s never seen the face he makes when he’s angry, since he’s too busy being angry to look in the mirror. And he doesn’t know how to make the face they want, either, pouting, rolling his eyes, until finally Kibum starts trying to annoy him into it. “Why is the prettiest girl in school always the bitchiest?” and, “Why do guys bother following her around? She’s a fan of Rain, she likes old men,” which Rain isn’t and Taemin _doesn’t,_ and, “Key oppa is much cooler than him.”

The parts without him there are even worse, though. When Taemin doesn’t forget his lines he flubs them. He always looks into the wrong camera, makes the wrong expressions, uses the wrong tone of voice, and after hours of slowing everyone else down, the world outside the window is growing light again and the only word he knows anymore is, “Cut!”

“Good job, Taemin-ah,” Kisoo hyung says. Lies, probably, but somehow the smile Taemin forces feels more real than all the other faces he’s tried on. “Just a few scenes left.”

The waiting between each one is even worse, somehow. The lights the crew set up are so bright they hurt his eyes, but the longer he stands outside them the darker his shadow gets, and he can’t even recognize it as himself. The cool air tickles his thighs with every step he takes and his wig is starting to itch, and his body has stopped feeling like his own somehow. His normal voice sounds weird now, too, so it’s just as well that he has nothing to say. Everyone else does. _Doesn’t he look like a doll? He’s too cute to be real. Let’s take a picture of you, Taemin-ah._ With Jonghyun in the end, stuck to Taemin’s side like he’s been all night, at least the half of it Taemin hasn’t spent alone. He tilts his head against Taemin’s and flashes a vee sign with the fingers that aren’t biting into Taemin’s wrist. Taemin barely remembers to smile, but in the next second he forgets how. _Taemin-ah, try calling me oppa,_ one of the crew hyungs says._ Just once. Call me oppa._

With a shrill, “Oppa~” and a toss of his fake hair, Jonghyun drags him to the other side of the hallway. The feeling only returns to Taemin’s legs in time for them all to kneel on the cold bathroom floor, piled into the corner opposite the mirrors they looked into hours and hours ago. When Kisoo hyung makes the others laugh Taemin laughs too, and forcing it out of his chest is easier than breathing in again is.

_I can do this. I have to. I can. I can’t go home until I do._

To school, more like. It’s past dawn already. Shit.

“Cut!” PD-nim’s eyes are on Taemin again. “Look scared, Taemin-ah. Or at least nervous.”

Taemin _is._

“It doesn’t matter if that’s how you’re feeling inside,” PD-nim says like he’s read his mind. “What matters is how it looks.”

The sun is shining down on them when Taemin squeezes ahead of Jonghyun to climb to safety in the backseat after Jinki, and Minsoo hyung finally pulls out of the school’s parking lot. Once Taemin leans against his window and closes his eyes, the sunlight bleeds through, turning everything red. Then it goes black. Next thing he knows his head is on Jinki’s shoulder instead, and Jinki’s voice is in his ear.

“Let’s just go home, hyung. Taeminnie’s sleeping.”

“He already misses way too much school. Believe me, I’d know.” Minho’s seat creaks as he twists around to look at him, and his voice only grows louder. “Taemin-ah. Taemin-ah?”

Kibum leans into the back, swatting at Taemin. “Yah, Taemin-ah. Stop pretending to sleep.”

“He’s not, he’s trying to.” Like Jonghyun could tell from the front seat. “It’s hard when you two never shut up.”

Like Jonghyun ever does himself. Normally he’d be sitting in the middle with Kibum, talking too fast for Taemin to keep up, half the time about things he doesn’t want to hear. His silence today was even louder, and Taemin doesn’t want to hear the things he’s been turning around in his head this whole time, either. Jonghyun gets to go home and go to bed. Taemin gets to dig his bag out of the back and climb past Jinki and let Minho and Kibum pet his hair and pat his butt, and not turn around when Jonghyun says, “Taemin-ah—”

Taemin slams the door shut behind him, and just like that he’s on his own. Eyes follow him all the way into the building, through the hallway, up the stairs, into his classroom. He keeps his head down until he reaches his desk, then hides in the circle of his arms as the class buzzes around him, squeezing his eyes shut tight. Red again.

Someone kicks his desk. The dick who sits in front of him, probably. Kim Sungho. When Taemin ignores them they do it again, hard enough to drive it into his chest and jar all the bones in his body. He’s so fucking tired.

“How come you’re not wearing your uniform?” What is he talking about? Taemin changed into it before they left and one of the noonas said, _Aigoo, you look just as cute this way~._ Sungho’s face says something else when he looks up, smile twisting the knife in Taemin’s gut. “Last I checked girls didn’t have a pants option.”

The class erupts into laughter. Taemin goes hot and cold, feeling rushing in and out. How…? Sungho’s friend sticks his cell phone in Taemin’s face, and the girl he saw in the mirror stares back.

“This is you, right?” one of them crows. “It’s you, don’t lie.”

When Taemin snatches at it dumbly he yanks it back, laughing. Taemin should have knocked it out of his hand. No. He should never have lifted his head. He should have kept it down until Sungho kicked his desk over or Seonsaengnim came in. When Jonghyun said Taemin-ah back there, Taemin should have listened to the rest of it. He’d have something to fill the hole opening up inside him.

“You’re all over the Internet,” a girl a few seats over tells him eagerly, without him even asking. She’s never talked to him before. “Someone posted it on DC and it blew up.”

One of the crew members? Or one of the fansite noonas, but Taemin didn’t see any of them around. It’s not like it matters, anyway. This would have happened next week when the episode aired.

“That explains why you always go to the bathroom to change,” Sungho says. His mouth curls. “You’re not my type, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t like flat girls.”

“What was your debut song again? Oppa, you’re so cool? Sing it for me. Come on.”

“At least he is a singer,” the girl snaps.

He’s not. He can’t sing. He’s just supposed to shut up and do what he’s told and act cute. They’re right to laugh at him.

“You still want to date him?” one of them says. “Are you a lesbian?”

She flushes red and opens her mouth to reply, before Sungho says over her, “That makes Taeminnie one too.” He smirks at Taemin. “If you like girls, that is.”

Those words don’t hit Taemin. They crawl under his skin and build inside him, grinding his voice up like broken glass in his chest, ripping into his stomach, but even if they squeeze his heart until it bursts, Jonghyun will stay stuck inside it. Taemin puts his back head down and waits it out, hands forming fists so tight his fingernails dig into his flesh.

_What did you say, hyung? Nothing important, right? Fighting, Taemin-ah. Sleep during class, you won’t miss anything. It’s okay if you’re tired._

“Don’t put your head down when people are talking to you.” Taemin’s desk rattles under him with the force of Sungho’s kick. “Yah.” Kick. “Yah.” Kick. “I’m talking to you. What’s with you, are you on your period or something?”

_You’re so dumb, hyung. I could sleep for a hundred years and I’d still be tired. How can it be okay when I can’t do anything about it?_

The kicks stop and the bell rings and Taemin almost misses it over his heart. He counts each beat as the footsteps draw closer, and the ruler raps on his desk.

“At least pretend to pay attention, Taemin-ah,” Seonsaengnim says, voice as sharp as the ruler’s edge, stinging across Taemin’s knuckles this time. The pain blinds him, split second of black before red blooms behind his eyelids again. “Idols are supposed to be role models. Shouldn’t you be setting an example for your classmates?”

Taemin lifts his head.

When Minsoo hyung comes to collect him at the end of the day, the others are with him. Jinki never takes the front seat, and Jonghyun usually gives it to Minho, since his legs are so much longer than all of theirs, but today they all left it for him. Which leaves Taemin to ignore all their eyes on the back of his head. At least Minsoo hyung beats Jonghyun to asking him how school was, because it’s good enough for him if Taemin grunts and stares out the window instead of meeting his eyes. It’s just as well that Minsoo hyung can’t see the look it puts on his face when he grunts back, “Music Bank today. Just the encore. Then radio. Sukira.”

“That’s on KBS, right?” Jinki says. “Then it’s all in the same building. That’s good.”

Taemin started all this because dancing was the only thing he was good at, but ever since they debuted, Taemin has spent every day of his life doing things he can’t do. Interviews, fan meetings, fan signs, variety, radio, and Jonghyun is there for all of it, making everything better and worse at the same time. When they’re standing on stage surrounded by seonbaes he tells Taemin stupid things to make him laugh, and he asks if they can stop in the cafeteria before climbing up to the radio division, then piles all his food onto Taemin’s tray. When they finally reach the studio and file in, he squeezes past Jinki to sit next to him, and fifteen minutes into the program, the only thing Taemin can feel is his warmth, pressing into his side. That and the heat rising in his ears, trapped in his headphones. His hand, petting Taemin’s hair as Taemin struggles to answer the questions Jeongsu and Hyukjae hyung ask him. Whenever he cuts in, untangling Taemin’s words, explaining what he meant like he meant anything at all, saying things Taemin could never have thought of when he can’t think, all Taemin wants to do is put his head down again, this time to sleep forever. As if he could with his stomach eating itself and his heart twanging like a rubber band.

“How are you holding up?” Jeongsu hyung asks them all in the next commercial break.

Jinki glances around at them all before telling him, “Fine.”

“The mic is off, that means you can be honest.” Jeongsu hyung half-smiles. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of us?”

Jinki shifts in his seat, glancing around again, before he smiles back wanly. “Just tired.”

Hyukjae shakes his head at him. Not enough detail. “Don’t think of us as seonbaes, think of us as hyungs. There aren’t a lot of people you can complain to, so complain to us.”

When Jinki hesitates again, Kibum says over him, “We were shooting all night, so we barely slept. Taeminnie and Minho haven’t at all.”

“School of Rock, right?”

How did they know? Taemin can’t even keep track of where they’re going until they’re almost there, and it’s his schedule.

“Heechul always says you’re like the angel version of him, but up close, you don’t look that much alike.” Jeongsu hyung’s face splits into a wide smile. “Taeminnie is prettier~”

Hyukjae hyung laughs, catching Taemin’s eye before he can look away. “Heechul hyung said the same thing himself when he saw those pictures of you dressed as a girl.”

This again. Taemin has nothing to do but sit here and wait for the hole inside him to open back up.

“How did that get out?” Kibum splutters, just as Taemin blurts out, “I have to go to the bathroom. Is there time?”

They nod like nothing, tell him it’s just down the hall, ask him if he wants a staff person to show him and tell him to be quick. Taemin doesn’t realize Jonghyun has followed him until he catches the door behind Taemin before it can slam shut. Taemin keeps walking, head down, but Jonghyun catches up within a few strides, short legs and all.

“You’ll get lost on your own,” Jonghyun tells him.

If he hadn’t said the same thing three years ago when Taemin went to change into the clothes he gave him, maybe Taemin wouldn’t be here with him today. Maybe because they never would have gotten this close and Jonghyun would have stayed in his seat and let him go by himself, or maybe because Taemin wouldn’t have made it this far without him. And now it’s thanks to Jonghyun that he can’t even make it down one hallway without his heart going crazy, but he would have kept walking until he hit a door if not for Jonghyun’s fingers closing around his wrist, tugging him into the bathroom. It’s so much brighter and cleaner than the one in that school, which was dank and dark and smelly, the opposite of what Jonghyun must have imagined. Now he should have seen his fill.

Taemin doesn’t have to go, and if he goes and hides in one of the stalls the silence will give him away, so he wrenches the nearest tap on and hunches over the sink. The water is like ice as he splashes it on his face.

“It was all over your school, right?” Jonghyun says.

Taemin’s chest tightens. “No.”

“I’m not dumb, Taemin-ah.”

“I don’t care.”

“That I’m not dumb?” His eyes are burning into the side of Taemin’s face. How much water would it take to wash this feeling away? “I can pretend if you want, but we’d both know I’m doing it. There’s no point.”

Taemin lifts his head. This time it’s him in the mirror, no wig, no lip-gloss, no makeup, bangs hanging in his eyes and water dripping down his chin. The face that Jonghyun has called pretty a thousand times looks as plain as ever to Taemin. He knows he’s not ugly. He knows he’s cute. He knows he’s pretty. People have told him so many times he can’t not. But maybe there’s nothing they can say that will ever make him see what they see. He’d have to want to, first.

Taemin squeezes past Jonghyun to yank fistfuls of paper towels out of the dispense, still avoiding his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t want to talk at all.” It sounds halfway between a correction and an accusation. “You never do.”

As Taemin heads for the door, Jonghyun grabs his arm, bringing him around to face him finally. He looks so normal it makes Taemin dizzy.

“I can’t make you, but they can,” Jonghyun says. He smiles faintly at the look on Taemin’s face, before sliding his hand up to his shoulder and turning Taemin back around, guiding him out into the hallway again. “They’re just trying to give you airtime, but hold onto me if you get stuck. I’ll come up with something.”

_This time there’s nothing you can do, hyung._

They get out after midnight, long after the rest of the city has gone home, but Minsoo hyung can’t make it back to the dorm without stopping for gas. Jonghyun squeezed into the backseat behind Taemin before Jinki could, shooting Taemin glances when Taemin isn’t looking, same silence as this morning on the way back from filming, so heavy it presses Taemin down into his seat. Instead of struggling out from underneath it when Minsoo hyung cuts the gas, climbing over him to escape into the open air, Taemin sits and watches through the window as the others wander off, stretching their legs. There’s nothing else to see out there. The clouds have covered the stars and Taemin is pretty sure there’s no moon, anyway. It’s the same sky as always, but it’s as ugly tonight as it was pretty last night. If only Taemin’s face could change like that. Then maybe PD-nim would’ve saved a lot of breath yelling at him to act out the things he was already feeling inside, and people would stop calling him pretty and cute when he feels shitty inside, and no one would look at him like that again or think he’s someone that he’s not, and.

“I wish people didn’t judge by looks.”

He doesn’t realize he said it out loud until Jonghyun reaches over to pinch his cheek.

“You’re lucky they do. You know how much you get away with~?” For one second Taemin’s temper flares, but Jonghyun’s hand drops before he can knock it away. Like he ever would have. “If I couldn’t see your face, I’d have to torture you instead. You never come out and say anything.”

Jonghyun’s fingers ghost down Taemin’s side. Taemin flinches away, flattening himself against his window, but it’s too late. Just one touch, and there’s this crazy fluttering inside him that’s not laughter. His heart again.

“I don’t mean facial expressions, that’s different.”

When Taemin sneaks a glance at Jonghyun, he gets caught in half a second. Jonghyun holds his eyes. He looks like shit, or as close to shit as he could ever get. His hair is hanging into his face and there are shadows under his eyes, darker than the mascara still smudged in the corners, even after he washed his makeup off, and he’s still in the clothes Geunyoung noona gave him, bright and crisp, like nothing he would have picked for himself. His part of the closet is one big wall of black.

“When you first meet someone, before you get to know them, what else is there?” Jonghyun says, almost gently. “This person has a pretty smile, they look nice. That person looks scary, they probably are, I probably shouldn’t talk to them.”

“How did I look at first?”

It’s a dumb question. Taemin already knows the answer, even before Jonghyun smiles.

“Cute.”

He’s dumb, too. If he didn’t want to hear it he shouldn’t have asked. He shouldn’t be asking, “And now that you know me?”

“Cuter.” Jonghyun’s smile brightens as it fades, this weird halfway expression that sits on Taemin’s chest. “What about me, what did you think of me?”

“Scary.”

Jonghyun’s expression flickers, this split second that sends tiny cracks through Taemin’s heart, and then he’s making a face at Taemin, eyes narrowing, mouth scrunching up. “After I gave you my clothes and everything. I won’t even ask how you think of hyung now.”

Taemin’s face flushes red hot. He wrenches his eyes away from Jonghyun’s somehow, smushing his cheek against the window. Minsoo hyung is right there, leaning against the side of the van as the tank fills, blocking half his view, but he’s blocking the light too. Maybe Jonghyun won’t see his ear turning red.

“I don’t want to be just one word,” Taemin says. “I don’t want people to see me that way. There are different sides to me.”

“That you hide, Taeminnie.”

When Jonghyun reaches for him his hand is as gentle as his voice was, petting Taemin’s hair, but that all just hurts Taemin’s heart more. Somehow he gets out, “It doesn’t matter. People just see what they want to see, anyway.”

Jonghyun told him once that different doesn't mean wrong, but it'd be so much easier if it did. There's nothing that could change how Taemin looks, or make him stop liking Jonghyun, but at least then Taemin could hate himself in peace, instead of hating his life, hating other people for the way they see him and the things they want him to hear. Instead of hating himself for hating himself. Like that makes sense.

“When we first met, when I said I was worried you would stop showing up, you told me you’re not how you look. You are, Taeminnie. You’re the first person I’ve met who’s the same inside as you are on the outside.” Hearts aren’t cute like the drawings, they’re bloody and ugly, and even Jonghyun couldn’t find beauty in ninety percent of the things Taemin thinks and feels, when they’re so much worse than the things he says and does. Right? And if Jonghyun knew how Taemin feels about him, if he could feel how hard his heart is beating right now…Taemin smushes his nose against the glass and squeezes his eyes shut. Jonghyun’s hand doesn’t pause in its strokes, big and warm and clumsy. “Your problem is when people say that you’re cute or that you’re pretty, you think they think you’re weak, or easy to push around, or something.”

“It means different things to different people, hyung.”

_And you don’t know everything about me._

Suddenly Jonghyun’s fingers knot in Taemin’s hair, just barely tugging at it. “Well, that’s not what I mean when I say it.”

He probably thinks Taemin is being really frustrating, but all he has to do is tug again, and, “I know,” spills out of Taemin. It doesn’t hurt.

“And I wish that it wasn’t what it meant to you.”

That does. So much Taemin can’t breathe for a second, waiting for this endless day to come crashing over him again, PD-nim and the crew hyungs and Sungho’s stupid face. His own. But here in the ghostly halo of the gas station lights, Jinki and Minho and Kibum’s voices carrying across the parking lot, the van groaning with Minsoo hyung’s sighs, Jonghyun’s hand in his hair, _Jonghyun_…somehow it never hits him.

“If it’s you, I don’t mind.” _You like parts of me that I hate._ “It’s everyone else.”

“They don’t know you, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun says immediately, like it’s that simple.

It’s not. It’s more like…

“Sometimes I think that, but then part of me thinks it’s because I don’t know myself,” Taemin says painfully. “Maybe it’s not that they see what they want to see, they just see things I don’t want to.”

For one second, silence. It’s as heavy as before, crushing in on Taemin, but warmer, closer. Then:

“Sometimes I wish people could see the real me, but it’s probably better they don’t.”

Taemin turns to look at Jonghyun before he can even think, heart squeezing in on itself. His expression hasn’t changed at all.

“Because idols are supposed to be perfect?” Taemin says.

“I’m not talking about our fans, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun replies evenly. “At least not only.”

His features give just that tiny bit, and for that split second Taemin is looking at the Jonghyun hyung from that one night years ago, when he dropped out of school and his father came for him. Maybe Jonghyun sees his own reflection in Taemin’s face, because in the next moment he’s patting his cheek, as clumsy and warm as before, before turning to his window. He can’t hide from Taemin any more than Taemin could hide from him.

_Sorry, Taemin-ah. This is what hyung is really like. I must look like a loser._

Taemin already told him back then that he didn’t, that he was cool, that he was the person Taemin wanted to be, and he doesn’t need Taemin to tell him now that his dad was wrong about him. He debuted. He made it. His first paycheck went straight to his mom, who said it was too precious to spend.

_I’ve seen everything, hyung—_

Has he? If there are things Jonghyun doesn’t know about Taemin, then there are things Taemin doesn’t know about him. And there are the things Taemin doesn’t get, and maybe he never will. Things that make Jonghyun laugh, things that make him cry, things inside him even he can’t put into words. The half of his face Taemin can see right now says that he’s fine, he was just saying, he doesn’t need Taemin to say anything back. Still…

“I like you the way you are.”

It takes everything inside Taemin to say those words, and all it gets him is another look, an echo of the one before. “You called me scary.”

“That was before, I said.”

“How about now, then?”

Taemin’s ears are burning again. “You said you weren’t going to ask.”

And the others’ voices are growing louder, and Minsoo hyung has gone in to pay, and Taemin just answered that anyway, and. And Jonghyun is breaking into his biggest, stupidest, crinkly eyed smile.

“Whatever you say, it’ll mean ‘I love you, hyung’ to me~”

Taemin’s heart stops, then starts up again twice as fast. “I don’t have one word for you.”

More like he doesn’t have any. Still, Jonghyun presses him, “Then what’s the first one? The first thing you think of when you think of me.”

“Annoying,” Kibum’s voice says. Taemin's eyes fly up to find him standing in the door, night at his back.

“Loud,” Minho adds as he drops back into the front seat.

Jinki takes until he’s climbed in after Kibum and rolled the door shut and Minsoo hyung returns to think of something better. And then it’s just, “Nice.”

Taemin could think for a million years and never come up with one that says everything in his heart. Every time he tries, he circles back to where he started:

_You._


	19. Mom

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP

Minho’s alarm. Fuck.

BEEP-BEEP—

It stops.

Minho.

Taemin buries his head in his pillow and breathes, listening for the creak of Minho’s mattress, the click of the door, the spray of the shower. After that he has five minutes, and then either he gets up, or Minho will come back in and drag him out of bed. _School, Taemin-ah. Come on, before the others wake up too._

“Yah, Taemin-ah. Get up already.” Jinki’s mattress groans like it’s dying, and then a foot connects with his side. Taemin flinches away and yanks his blanket over his head, even as toes dig into his side and a voice cracks down on him, “I could tell you’re pretending from all the way up there, that’s how much you suck at it.”

Taemin rolls over and opens his eyes. “What are you doing up?”

Kibum’s eyebrows knot together, mouth opening for a retort that dies halfway up his throat. Taemin sees the exact second it hits him: promotions are over. The last music show they went on aired a whole week ago. He could have slept in, he could be sleeping right now, anything but dropping to his knees on Jinki’s bed and rolling Taemin out into the open with a loud, “What are you doing still lying here?” Jinki would have slept through Kibum stepping on him, breathing as deep and even as it has been the second he hit his bed last night, but Jonghyun. The mattress above Taemin’s head creaks and his heart stops in his chest.

“Fighting, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun mumbles into his pillow. “Learn some shit today.”

Taemin pushes Kibum off him and heads for the door blindly, heart sinking so fast he can’t keep up with it. Minho is already out of the shower, so Taemin squeezes in before Kibum, then stands under the water and scrubs yesterday away. He feels the exact same once he’s out, skin buzzing, mouth full of cotton. In another week summer break will come, and maybe he’ll finally have a different morning than this one, or at least he’ll get to sleep through it. For now…he avoids his eyes in the mirror and heads straight for the kitchen without looking back into their room or listening for Jonghyun’s footsteps, him fighting with Kibum over the shower, any of the things that will never come. Instead the water cuts on. Taemin scrapes up half the rice left in the cooker and drops down next to Minho at the table, and stuffs his face while Minho does the same. His hand says all there is to say anyway, petting Taemin’s hair, big and warm and clumsy. At least until the bathroom door clicks open and Minho looks past Taemin to see Kibum standing in the doorway. 

“Go back to bed,” he says, spraying rice over the table.

Kibum makes a face.

“You’re the one who woke me up, you’re half Minsoo hyung’s size but you make twice as much noise.”

Minsoo hyung doesn’t look up at the sound of his own name, eyes glued to the television as the strings swell. Another sageuk, probably. The last time Kibum stole the television back, he found it on the Buddhist channel, and Minsoo hyung’s excuse was that he’d found a re-run of Shin Don. Like that is an excuse.

Kibum pinches Taemin’s cheek as he passes by the table, too quick for him to duck away. “Do you want hyung to cook an egg for you?”

There’s no point. Taemin can’t even taste his rice, and it’ll end up turning to stone in his stomach.

“You’re back to being hyung and not mom,” Minho says after him. “I don’t get how you do it. It doesn’t make you shrivel up when you say that?”

It does for Taemin, at least. It was bad enough when SM told him his concept was acting cute, even without Jonghyun saying, _You don’t need to act. Just be yourself~._ When they said they had to pretend to be a family, that Taemin had to call Kibum mom, Jonghyun must have bit his tongue until it bled, all day and on the ride home, until the door to the dorm shut behind them and he finally exploded: _What the fuck?_ Taemin didn’t bite his, because the only things he had to say were things everyone knows. His parents are at home. He hasn’t seen them for months, but he saw them every single day of his life leading up to this, and maybe when school lets out, he’ll get to see them again.

None of that shows on Kibum’s face as he sinks down across from them with his own rice bowl. 

“At least Taeminnie is cute. I’d rather die than have a son like you.” And Taemin would rather die than call Kibum mom, but he does all the time. Kibum turns to him as he picks up his spoon. “How’s school?”

“It’s school,” Taemin says through a mouthful of rice. Kibum is the one who asked, but he makes another face.

“Should Mom call your teacher~?” Kibum says. Before Taemin can answer, Kibum is already shaking his head at him, reaching for him again, this time to pick rice off his cheek. “Never mind. Just do well enough that I don’t have to, and I don’t care after that.”

Minho snorts. “Wow, thank God for Taeminnie’s real mom.”

“She doesn’t care, either. It’s all useless anyway.”

“Education is never useless, Taemin-ah,” Minho starts up, just as Kibum says sharply, “Don’t lie about shit like that, Taemin-ah. That’s the same as calling her a bad parent.” His eyes narrow. “How bad are your grades?”

How is it any of his business? A dull flush is creeping into Taemin’s face. His spoon scrapes the bottom of his bowl with this bite. One more and he’s done, out of here, off to fucking school while Kibum crawls back into bed or waits for Jinki and Jonghyun to get up.

“I’m not failing,” Taemin says. It’s a mistake, he knows it even before Kibum lays his chopsticks down and crosses his arms over his chest and pins Taemin in place with one look.

“So bad.”

“You’re not my mom, hyung.”

Kibum barks out a laugh. “Should we call her and see what she says? Where is Taeminnie’s phone~?”

In his bag…he thinks? But Taemin would die before he told Kibum that.

“I’m going to tell her you keep bothering me,” comes shooting out of Taemin, before the sound of his own words sends his ears red hot. Kibum is smiling now, eyes crinkling up into half moons, and somehow that’s even worse than when they were narrowed into slits, somehow that cuts deeper.

“She’ll make me food to thank me. All your banchan will go to me,” he says.

_She’ll ask me why it’s been so long since I called, and then I’ll have to tell her it’s because I didn’t want to tell her anything bad._

Taemin’s stomach twists up so tight he doesn’t know where the rice will go when he swallows.

“She’ll adopt you,” Minho is piling on. “You can change your name to Taebum and get rid of Key.”

“Seriously, where’s your phone?” Kibum says. “Let’s call her.”

“I have a D in math,” Taemin blurts out.

For one single second of Taemin’s life, silence.

Then Minho: “But Jinki hyung said you’re good at it.”

“He is,” Kibum says impatiently, eyes fixed on Taemin’s face. “So you’re failing everything else.” I’m not rises up like a wall inside Taemin, because he isn’t, not everything, but Kibum would just hear that he is some things. For one moment it almost looks like he’s about to smile, but then he explodes into a sigh, scrubbing his fingers through his hair like he’s about to tear it out. “I was in middle school, Taemin-ah. Okay, you don’t have time to study, maybe the best you can do is a B or a C. But straight F’s? Did you just sleep through everything?”

No one asked Minho, but before Taemin can say anything he’s there. “You don’t know what it’s like with this schedule—”

“How are you going to survive high school at this rate?” Kibum says over him.

“Jonghyun hyung didn’t graduate.”

It’s out of Taemin’s mouth before he can stop himself, and then it hangs in the air between them, and Taemin is stuck watching Kibum’s mouth thin and his face harden.

“Don’t use him as an excuse. He went to music school, he didn’t just drop out.” And he told Taemin to wait and see how he did, and he’s doing just fine. They’re getting paid again next week, and there’ll be another album, and in a few years they’ll have enough to buy a car or a house, but for now Taemin is stuck nailed to his seat with a mouthful of ash, while Kibum sighs at him and reaches across the table to smush his cheeks between his hands. “Don’t base your life on following Jonghyun hyung around.”

Next thing Taemin knows he’s halfway across the room. He heads for the entryway, half-blind, heart thudding in his ears as Minsoo hyung stays rooted to the couch and Kibum’s incredulous voice carries across the room.

“Aigoo, you’re mad at me now?” And then, “I’m not saying this to be mean, Taemin-ah, I’m trying to get you to think shit through. If you can’t do that, then you can’t make your own decisions. You lose that right.”

Someone should tell Kibum that Taemin never had that right. Not Minho, because he’s too busy saying, “Do you ever think shit through?”

“I wasn’t talking to you. And yeah, if it’s important, I do.”

“So ninety-nine percent of the things you say aren’t important, in other words.”

“One hundred percent of the things I say to you,” Kibum snaps. “There’s no point being serious with someone who’ll never get it.”

“Just go back to swearing at me in saturi, then.”

“Should I?” Kibum’s chair scrapes across the floor as he stands. “Stop taking it out on me that I didn’t transfer to a high school in Seoul. It’s not my fault you picked one that’s up your ass about attendance, either.”

“Then why are you up mine?”

Another thing Taemin shouldn’t have said, but this time Kibum’s face falls open and he laughs. 

It’s not funny. Training is the one thing in his whole life he decided for himself, but now that he’s debuted, they took that away from him. Kibum, Jonghyun, Minho, Jinki, Minsoo hyung, the company, all of them. Where the fuck are his shoes? On the shelf that no one asked Kibum to buy, in the cubby Taemin never asked Kibum to put them. He kicks them down and shoves his foot into the first one, before Kibum’s hand closes around his arm, turning him back around firmly. There’s no part of Taemin that doesn’t want to yank free, see how hard he holds on, but instead he stands there and lets Kibum look down at him. And hand Taemin his school bag. The strap digs into his shoulder, the weight of all the books he’ll never read and shit he’ll never learn, whatever Jonghyun said.

“Don’t thank me, just make sure you use whatever school shit is making this thing weigh a million pounds.” Kibum catches his eyes. Holds them. “Okay?”

_You can’t make me care about school, hyung. There’s no point._

“Why do you care so much?” Taemin says.

“Because I can’t not.” Kibum squeezes him into a hug. Over his shoulder, Minsoo hyung is finally rising from the couch. “Do well today, son~.”

Mom always used to say stuff like that. _Have a good day, Taemin-ah. Do well. Have fun. Fighting!_

Taemin never listened to any of it. As Minsoo hyung pulls out into the street, Taemin checks his bag for his phone. It’s not in any of the pouches he always tells himself to put it in, or sandwiched between his books, squashed in the corner, buried in the bottom, anywhere.

Minsoo hyung glances at him in the rearview mirror. “Did you forget something?”

Taemin’s heart squeezes in on itself like it’s trying to hide, but that hurts so much he feels it everywhere.

“No.”

Nothing they could go back for, at least. Where else could he have put it? In their room somewhere? The others or Ahjumma would have found it. Maybe it got stuck in the couch cushions? And Minsoo hyung somehow never found it, all those times he’s sat there watching the news or the weather or old men in fake beards yelling at each other. Or the kitchen or the bathroom or the entryway or somewhere in this van, all places they go all the time. But what if it’s not, what if he lost it at one of the millions of places they went during promotions? Then he’ll never get it back.

“Kibum is right, Taemin-ah. School is important,” Minho says, catching his eye. “If you ever need help with anything—”

_Promise to tell me if there’s something wrong. Even if I can’t do anything, I won’t freak out like Mom. And I won’t tell her, either, I’ll just listen._

Taemin hasn’t told Taewoo anything in all this time, after everything, and he has no way to tell him now: I lost my phone. I can’t talk to you or Mom or Dad until I find it again. What if I can’t, what if it’s gone? 

“Just worry about yourself, hyung,” Taemin says, turning to stare out the window. He stares and stares and stares, until everything blurs together.

On the way back from school, it crawls. Minho has been staying after all week to catch up so it’s just Taemin and Minsoo hyung and Taemin’s day and his bag where his phone should be. And the hole inside Taemin, this big endless black thing that’s eaten away everything else.

“Hyung.”

Minsoo hyung grunts to show he’s listening. If Taemin asked to drive by his old building, he probably would, right? Mom must be at home, doing the laundry out on the balcony or cooking pancakes for Taewoo to have when he gets back, if he hasn’t already, and if Taemin stayed for just an hour he could see Dad, too. But even that would be too long. Minsoo hyung has things he has to do, and so does Taemin, and every second he spent with them would pile up, until his tears got too heavy not to fall. And he’d rather die than cry in front of them. He’s being dumb, anyway. It’s only been a few months and he’s the one who lost his phone.

“Can you drop me off at SM?” Taemin says.

“The practice room again?” They coast to a stop as the light turns red, and Minsoo hyung slots Taemin a glance. “Taemin-ah.”

“Mm.”

Minsoo hyung hesitates some more. Ninety-nine percent of his silences are because he has nothing to say that requires words, but this time it’s like he’s not sure how to say it.

“If I didn’t drive for a week, I wouldn’t forget how,” he says at last. “When I go long enough it starts to feel that way, but when I get behind the wheel again, it’s like I just got out to stretch my legs for a while.”

That’s a metaphor, right? This isn’t the first time in Taemin’s life someone has told him he works too hard, but Minsoo hyung of all people should know that there’s no such thing, and dancing isn’t like driving either. There’s always more to learn.

“I’m not trying to stay as good as I am right now, hyung,” Taemin says. “I have to get better.”

Minsoo hyung frowns, then nods. And that’s it. He goes back to the road and Taemin pretends to go back to the world outside his window, all while staring into the nothing inside himself. SM is so much closer by car than it was by the bus and train, and when they pull up to the curb outside the main building, Taemin isn’t sure if it’s been an eternity or if no time at all has passed. Taemin gets his seatbelt and goes for his door.

“There’s no point asking you what time I should come back to pick you up, right?” Minsoo hyung says.

“I used to sleep here all the time.”

Well, down the street. The practice rooms in the training center were all on the upper floors, sunlight pouring in all day and the city glittering after dark, but here they’re in the basement, and the difference between night and day is the flick of a light switch. All Taemin has to do is leave it on, and time will disappear until his life catches up with him.

“As long as I know where you are. You’re stuck, you can’t leave. Okay?” Before Taemin can slam the door behind him, Minsoo hyung leans forward to catch his eye. “Call me if you change your mind, Taemin-ah. Doesn’t matter what time. That’s what I’m here for.”

Why is he being so weird? Maybe Taemin should have found a way to lie to him like he used to lie to Mom, but if he said he was going to sleep at Jongin’s, Minsoo hyung would probably have told him he couldn’t and turned the van around. As it is, he waits until Taemin reaches the doors before pulling away from the curb. A few weeks ago he gave Taemin a keycard with his name on it. One flick and they would open for him silently, nothing like the way he used to get locked out if he came too early, or locked in when he stayed the night. Or the alarm that went off that one time. The night he and Jongin became friends. They both acted like they weren’t scared, but Taemin was so much better at faking it than he was. Or maybe not? Maybe Jongin was better at pretending not to notice. Even from the beginning, he understood things about Taemin that he could never understand about himself. Even now, if Taemin turned himself upside down, shook out every last stupid piece of his heart for him to see, he could probably figure out where it’s all supposed to go. If he’d even want to talk to him, if he’s not mad Taemin hasn’t replied to his texts in he doesn’t know how long. If he even still sends them.

Taemin’s feet are carrying him down the sidewalk. Minsoo hyung said to stay but Taemin isn’t five years old, he can cross the street by himself, and once he does, he could walk the rest of the way with his eyes closed. He never had a manager before, he used to do everything on his own.

More like nothing. He always had Jonghyun, and Jongin, and Jinki and Minho and Kibum.

And Moongyu.

Taemin finds him in the practice room on the end of the hall on the second floor, the one with the window that won’t open and that one floorboard that creaks. It was always the emptiest when they came, and the three of them would stay until they had it to themselves. Today it’s full of kids. Their chatter dies as they see him standing in the doorway, then starts up again twice as loud. The ones who don’t say anything to him stare, hiding behind their hands, sneaking glances at him, while the ones who come up to him can’t even look, bowing and muttering greetings at the floor. Why are they being so weird, why is everyone being so weird today? It’s only been a few months since Junmyeon said SM gave up on him by debuting him, and a few months more since the thought of him making it was a joke, and he only had to cross one street to get here. Should he be saying something? Doing something? Just leaving? Probably. He should probably just—

Moongyu grabs his wrist and tugs him down the hallway. Taemin follows blindly. He thinks they’ll head straight up to the roof, but before they reach the stairs Moongyu pulls him into another room. There’s no one around.

“There aren’t that many new kids, and all the hyungs left when you debuted,” Moongyu says at his look. Jongin told him the same thing last time he saw him, but that feels like millions of years ago. “Lessons just ended, that’s why that one was so full. We barely even have to fight for space anymore.”

“You’re staying to practice, right?” Taemin says stupidly.

“What about you, did you get lost or something?” Moongyu’s just joking, he probably read it in Taemin’s face in under a second. And sure enough, once his smile fades, he tells Taemin, “Jonginnie isn’t here.”

“How come?”

It’s not until the question is out of Taemin’s mouth that his chest constricts, but then Moongyu smiles again, and just like that Taemin can breathe again. 

“He has a test he can’t fail. His mom is threatening to enroll him in hagwon again.”

Oh. When Moongyu sinks down onto the floor Taemin follows him with a thud, strings cut.

“He’s okay other than that?”

Moongyu leans back on his hands, leveling Taemin with a look. “You lost your phone again.”

“This is the first time,” Taemin blurts out, but not to defend himself. The truth is way worse. Half of him would rather die than admit it, and the other half is already dying from keeping it in. “I never lost it before. I just forgot to check it.”

Moongyu just snorts, shaking his head at Taemin. “That’s what I told him.”

“Does he think I’m ignoring him?” Taemin says painfully.

“He texts you and you don’t text him back, what is he supposed to think?” As harsh as his words are, Moongyu’s voice is gentle. He pushes his sneaker into Taemin’s shin, one touch that snaps Taemin back into place. “I told him it’s not like that already, and he knows I’m always right. That’s not it, either, not exactly. More like…you’re busy? And he’s not.”

That’s no longer an excuse.

“Promotions ended last Saturday. The hyungs haven’t even come in to practice all week, they just sleep all day,” he says.

Moongyu narrows his eyes at Taemin, almost like he’s caught him in a lie. “Even Jonghyun hyung?”

He has more sleep to catch up on than all the others combined. On all the nights Taemin lay awake listening, he always fell asleep first, and in all those mornings, no one ever had to wake Jonghyun up or drag him out of bed, the way they all did Taemin. Maybe he finally drifted off while Taemin was sitting through trigonometry class, or maybe he gave up a little after that, wandered out to the couch see if Minsoo hyung’s sageuk could put him to sleep. Maybe he’s still lying there right now, daylight burning through his eyelids. It’s almost dark again. If he’s noticed Taemin hasn’t come home, he probably doesn’t care. Minsoo hyung will have told him where he is. 

“Minho hyung is the only one who still has school. Kibum hyung’s school sends him packets.” That’s not an answer, but it’s better than any of the stuff in Taemin’s head. He clears his throat. “You haven’t said anything about yourself.”

Moongyu makes a face at him, saying, “I was waiting for you to remember I exist.” Taemin’s heart pangs with guilt, before Moongyu laughs, and his own laughter takes him by surprise. When he can breathe again his chest is all cleared out. “There’s nothing much to say. I thought when you guys debuted and all the hyungs left, maybe I’d get noticed. The new kids got picked for their visuals, though. There aren’t many of them, but they’re all too good-looking.”

Taemin’s heart does it to him again.

“Jonginnie said when he first met you, he thought you were the most handsome person he’d ever seen.”

Moongyu makes another face. “For a joke to be funny it has to be believable, kinda.”

Taemin’s not joking. “That’s what he said.”

Moongyu laughs again, leaning in to ruffle Taemin’s hair. “Thanks for still being you, Taemin-ah.” As his smile fades, he barely hesitates, then goes on, “The real problem is I’m not good enough at anything. If I were a better singer or dancer, I could be even uglier and they wouldn’t care.”

Moongyu is the one who was always telling Taemin he’s too hard on himself, but if Taemin told him that now, he’d probably say he’s just being realistic. And maybe he is. Maybe that’s what hurts the most. Taemin still doesn’t know why he got picked in the end, but Moongyu knew he wouldn’t make it, and there’s only one reason why anyone gets cut: you aren’t good enough. But Moongyu stayed when all those other kids left, which means he also knows he can get better. He probably doesn’t need Taemin to tell him useless stuff like, “Kibum hyung says if you have a personality, you don’t need looks.”

“I should get funnier, you mean.” Moongyu barely considers it before he makes another face and says in the stupidest voice, “How am I supposed to do that with you two for friends? You laugh at anything.”

That was before.

“You should hear Jinki hyung’s jokes,” is all Taemin is going to say. “He’s worse than my dad. If my grandpa were still alive he’d be worse than him, too.”

When Taemin rises to his feet and offers Moongyu his hand, he takes it immediately, but instead of heading over to the sound system, telling Taemin, _If you want to pick the music go back to your building,_ asking him, _there’s this part that’s been giving me problems, you take a look at it,_ he stays right where he is and looks Taemin in the eye some more. Any longer and Taemin might end up like those kids from before, unable to look back.

“You haven’t said how you are, either.”

There’s nothing to say. There never is.

_Mom never calls me first, she always waits for me to do it. She says her life is too boring, but I know it’s because she’s waiting for me to tell her stuff. I don’t want to tell her anything bad. I can’t. I was waiting for something good to happen. This whole time I forgot, though, she’s been waiting. I don’t even know when I lost my phone. I don’t know if I’ll ever find it._

_I wish Jonginnie had been here._

“Break is coming up,” comes out of Taemin’s mouth instead of any of that. “Maybe we can hang out, or meet up here, or something.”

That sounds like what his friend said to him years and years ago now, at the start of that break, the summer Jonghyun first took him home. What was his name?

“I won’t tell Jonginnie you said that, in case something comes up,” Moongyu says now. “Which it will, Taemin-ah.”

That summer it was practice, and this summer it’s work. And somehow after everything, he’s still alone.

He’s also being dumb. Moongyu is right here, and he still likes him, even if it’s because he doesn’t have a phone to text Taemin things he won’t read. He asks Taemin to go over the choreo with him for evals, again and again and again, until they match each other in the mirror, the windows blacken and the lights grow brighter, more fake. At ten thirty Moongyu finally gives up. His mom is way stricter than Jongin’s or Taemin’s, she’d probably report him missing if he didn’t come home, and anyway, tomorrow is a school day. For Taemin, too, but Moongyu says goodbye at the doors, leaving Taemin behind in the place he no longer belongs. When the teachers sweep the upstairs, he stays right where he is in the practice room, and when Ssaem pokes his head in the door, he doesn’t say, _What are you still doing here, Taemin-ah? Let’s go home. I can give you a ride._

“Are the practice rooms in the main building all full? Turn the lights off when you’re done, Taemin-ah. And say hi to Minsoo for me.”

He could dance to “Replay” without music, but instead he plays the first song in the sound system. It’s one he recognizes, one of the ones they worked on when he was still on this side of the street, and his body remembers the choreo. He dances until it forgets, then dances some more, until his muscles break down and his back is painted with sweat and each breath is like a knife between his ribs. The stars wink out one by one and the sky blushes pink, but the hallway is still so dark he has to feel his way to the vocal room. He could find it with his eyes closed.

The floor is hard, but his body hurts so much already he barely feels it. And he can barely feel that, either, since his heart hurts so much more.

Maybe when he wakes up it won’t.

“Taemin-ah.”

In a minute.

“Taemin-ah.”

How did he miss Minho’s alarm? How did Minho let him. Taemin rolls over and his entire body protests, cold hard floor rising up, scratchy carpet prickling his skin. Not his bed. No Jinki, either. Or Kibum. He’d be yelling at him by now.

“I know you’re awake, so don’t even try and fake it. Your breathing changes.”

Jonghyun.

Taemin’s eyes fly open to find him standing over him, arms folded tightly across his chest, dark dark eyes that pin Taemin in place. He stares back, paralyzed, watching as Jonghyun opens his mouth to yell or swear or cry or something, but for one second it’s like he’s too angry to form words.

Then, “You told Minsoo hyung you were spending the night in the practice room. The one across the street. What the fuck are you doing back here?”

Here. The vocal room. Training center.

Shit.

Taemin plants his palms onto the floor and struggles to his knees, heart lurching in his chest with every movement. His voice comes out so normal it’s weird. “What are you? We don’t have a schedule.”

He looks back up to find Jonghyun’s eyes narrowing into slits. “Is that why your phone is off?”

“What?”

Almost before he can finish Jonghyun says, voice rising, “Your fucking phone, Taemin-ah. It better be off, or dead, or you will be when I’m done with you. If you ignored me—” He cuts himself off, breathing hard, hands balled into fists. Then, voice shaking, “You can’t just not come home and go off somewhere instead of being where you said you would be, and then not answer your fucking phone. You’re sixteen years old.” And when Jonghyun was this age, he was already staying here by himself, but Taemin can’t find the words to remind him, whole body in freefall, all these different pieces of himself flying apart. He can’t fix it. Jonghyun is mad. Really mad. Really, really. “You know how many fucking times I tried to call you?” and, “I can’t get in this fucking place with a key card, I had to wait all fucking night for the janitor to come,” and, “What the fuck are you even _doing_ here? You make no fucking sense,” when he’s the one who knew to find Taemin in this exact room. Finally he collapses onto his knees next to Taemin, hiding his face behind trembling hands. “Taemin-aaaaah. I planned out exactly how I was going to murder you, but now I’m so mad I can’t even remember.”

“You waited up all night?” Taemin’s heart squeezes in on itself, reminding Taemin it’s there. He ignores it, scooting closer to Jonghyun. “What if I hadn’t been here?”

Jonghyun emerges to glare at him.

“You think I didn’t think of that? That was the only thought in my head, this whole time.” Should Taemin be patting his head or his shoulder or something? His fingers barely brush Jonghyun’s shirt when Jonghyun shoots him another accusing look. “You make me so crazy. You know there are creeps around here, I’ve fucking told you so many times. You know what they’d do to you.”

The only one Taemin has ever seen turned out to be Jonghyun’s dad.

“I wanted to see Jonginnie,” Taemin admits, throat closing suddenly around his name. “He wasn’t even here in the end.”

“Next time text him, Taemin-ah, for fuck’s sake. That’s what your phone is for.”

“I lost it.”

It’s not like admitting it to Moongyu. It hurts so much more.

“You lost it,” Jonghyun repeats, almost like he’s making sure. Like Taemin doesn’t lose everything important.

“I don’t know when or where.” Taemin has to force the words out of his chest. “I can’t even remember the last time I called Mom.”

“Taeminnie—”

“I can just buy a new one when we get paid.”

“Taeminnie.”

His voice is so gentle it hurts even more, and just like that Taemin is right back to where he was last night, pain slamming into him so hard it knocks the breath out of him. He should be climbing to his feet, shouldering open the door, run until he can’t anymore, but his chest is so tight and the strength is leaving his legs and his eyes are burning and his face is wet. Fuck.

“Don’t tell Kibum hyung.” Taemin’s voice bursts out of him like a sob. “He’ll act like it’s my fault and I already know it is.”

Jonghyun pulls him in. Taemin stiffens at his touch, but then Jonghyun’s arms are around him and his face is buried in Jonghyun’s chest and everything comes out, tears and snot and _everything._ “I’m a bad son, hyung. I’m failing school. I’m dumb.” Taemin twists his hands up in Jonghyun’s shirt as the feeling inside him rips its way up his throat. “I’m so dumb I forgot them. I promised Taewoo hyung I wouldn’t. I forgot them but I miss them all the time, it’s like there’s a hole where they should be.”

And it hurts so much he could die, but he bites that back, shaking and crying and being stupid, because even now, he’s so dumb. He told himself he wouldn’t cry again, not until he could buy them all a house where they could live together, and Mom has no reason to cry ever again. He didn’t forget that, and he won’t ever. Not even when he has enough money to buy them a million houses, not for as long as he lives. But every deep breath he tries to take hitches in his chest, and when Jonghyun rubs his back, he wrenches another sob out of him. Taemin screws his face up and clenches his hands so tight they go numb, and still, his tears keep falling. Jonghyun is saying something, rocking him in place, patting his back, warm and solid and _there._ When Taemin finally lifts his head, he catches Taemin’s eye before he can turn away, find another place to hide. Taemin scrubs his hands over his face, but it makes no difference. Jonghyun won’t care that he looks ugly.

“Don’t tell Kibum hyung about this, either,” he gets out.

“Just Minho and Jinki hyung~”

He’s joking, but it’s not funny. “I’ve seen you cry so many times.”

“So have they, it’s nothing new,” Jonghyun says. His hands slide up from Taemin’s shoulders to smush his cheeks, squeezing fresh tears out of him. He brushes them away with his thumbs. “And not over stupid stuff like this. When was the last time you remember seeing it?”

Didn’t he listen?

“I don’t know.”

“Where do you normally put it?”

“I already looked and it’s not there. Do you think I’m dumb?”

Jonghyun flicks the tip of Taemin’s nose with one finger and lets go of Taemin finally, sitting back with his legs folded sideways. He’s the only person Taemin knows who sits like that, but Jonghyun says he learned it from his sister. Mermaid style or something. He talks about her more than Taemin even thinks of his family, but he’s never cried from missing them where Taemin could see.

“If it’s in the dorm, they probably already found it,” Jonghyun is saying. “You don’t know how many times I called you.”

Wouldn’t he have heard it too? Unless…

“Not from there, from SM?”

“And if it’s not, we’ll go get you a new one after school,” Jonghyun goes on like he hasn’t heard him. “Minsoo hyung won’t care. If we were busy he’d probably go pick it up himself. And you can still use the landline like the rest of us.”

Taemin doesn't even remember his home number, and he can't read Jongin's texts with that, and SM sees the bill, but who cares about that right now. “What did you come in for?”

Jonghyun doesn’t even blink. “You can ask me that after all this time?”

Jonghyun has been telling Taemin he works too hard since they first met, and he works even harder. He forgets to eat sometimes and he never sleeps.

“Minsoo hyung said it’s okay to take days off, he said it’s like driving a car or something,” Taemin says haltingly, before adding all in a rush, “And you can just sing at home, you already do all the time, and you need sleep.”

“I could say all the same things to you,” Jonghyun says almost before Taemin can finish. “You used to dance on the way to the bus stop, you told me you could anywhere. Just for one day of your life, you can live without practicing all night or sleeping on the floor.” Jonghyun hesitates, lip caught between his teeth, time stretching between them in this way that has Taemin’s stomach flipping over. “That’s what I was going to say to you if I’d found you last night. This morning…I’m sorry I yelled. Hyung is sorry.”

What is he sorry for? Taemin scrubs at his face, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes until spots dance across his vision, blinding him in place of his tears.

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer,” he gets out. “I wouldn’t have, even if I did have my phone.”

It’s so much harder than it should be to say those words, but all it gets him is one long drawn-out groan of, “Taemin-aaaaaah. Where would you be without me?” Nowhere. Taemin’s face must say something else, because Jonghyun is narrowing his eyes at him again. “If you weren’t so cute I would have left you to die a long time ago.”

“Sleeping at home isn’t much better, anyway.”

Home. The dorm. He says it without thinking now.

“Because of Jinki hyung.” It’s not even a question, but the next thing Jonghyun says should be. “You want me to switch beds with him?”

Heat rises in Taemin’s face at the barest thought, waking up looking into Jonghyun’s face every day, his hair fanned out on his pillow, the curl of his mouth and the line of his neck and the sound of his breathing in Taemin’s ear, his warmth, how instead of chasing Taemin out of bed with a dried fish, he could just roll over and pinch and tickle and crush Taemin into admitting he’s awake, and.

Before he can even think he’s saying, “He’d probably roll off if you did,” but that’s true, anyway. Taemin breathes. “You’re worse than him, anyway. He can’t help it, but you move around when you’re awake, which is all night.”

Jonghyun doesn’t make a face or flick Taemin’s forehead or say, _You must be up all night too, then._ For the longest time he doesn’t say anything at all, just sits there and stares while the air-conditioning hums and the room grows lighter. Taemin doesn’t even know what time it is.

Finally Jonghyun says, “Ever since middle school sometime, I started having a hard time sleeping. The longer I lie there the harder it gets.”

_I’m so tired I’m not tired. That’s just how hyung works._

There’s nothing Taemin can say to that, but he gets it, so much it hurts. The longer he sits here and stares back at Jonghyun, the harder it gets to say anything at all. The further he gets behind in his classes, the harder it is to catch up, and the reason he comes in to practice every single free moment he has is that he can’t let that happen with dancing. And he used to check for his phone constantly to make sure it was still there, he still had it, but days and then months passed without hearing Mom’s voice, and his life filled up with shit he could never tell her. It’s only now that he can’t call her that he would die to.

And if Taemin said any of that out loud, there’s nothing Jonghyun could say, either, even if he never stopped trying to find something. He struggles to his feet clumsily. “Let’s go, hyung. I have school.”

Only Jonghyun’s eyes follow him up, his head tipping back to stare up at Taemin. “You don’t want to skip?”

Taemin gives him his hand. Jonghyun takes it, letting himself be pulled up. He reaches the door first, holding it open for Taemin. They’re halfway down the hallway by the time it slams shut, so loud in the early morning silence. 

“I can just take the train from here.”

“I’ll call you a taxi,” Jonghyun says. “I spent all night thinking about what might have happened to you, I can’t spend all day like that too.”

_Go home and sleep, hyung. You should have slept last night, too. I don’t want you to think of me if it keeps you up._

_Even if I do want you to, even if I want it to keep you up, still don’t._

“Thank you, hyung.”

Jonghyun shoots him a look. “You better not mean for the taxi.”

For being here. For liking Taemin, for thinking of him, for being sorry he yelled at all when he should have yelled more. For not being Kibum and not telling him things he should hear, like the fact that his uniform stinks and washing his face in the bathroom won’t change that, or that he should have done his homework last night, and he’ll probably be late. For coming to find him when he didn’t answer his phone. For telling him it was stupid to cry about it. For letting Taemin cry. For being him.

Taemin’s ears are tingling again. “I don’t know.”

“Save it for when we find your phone. Then I want eggs in soy broth. Your mom’s are better than mine’s.”

“I don’t even need to ask, she always makes what you like.” Taemin sneaks a sideways glance at Jonghyun. “What else?”

Jonghyun hooks his arm around Taemin’s shoulders, pulling him in and kissing him on the cheek. Taemin dies. Face on fire, heart exploding, and it doesn’t mean anything, but he’s dying. He keeps walking.

School is school. When he picks Taemin up, Minsoo hyung doesn’t ask and Taemin doesn’t say anything, so they go straight back to the dorm. Taemin has the entire walk from their parking spot up to their floor to not think about what he’ll find, if the hyungs will have turned the place upside down looking for his phone, if they left it out on the kitchen table silently, if Jonghyun told them all he cried and they’re all laughing at him—they wouldn’t. And they aren’t. Everything is the same as when he left it, except Jonghyun is sprawled out on the couch instead of his bed, Jinki is reading his book, and Minho has the TV. Soccer, probably. Taemin can’t see with Kibum in the way. He watches as Taemin kicks off his shoes, but he doesn’t say anything when he leaves them strewn in the entryway instead of putting them in their cubby, just follows Taemin into the room. None of the rest of them even look up. Is Jonghyun asleep for real? He wouldn’t have forgotten, not after everything, he would have looked for it. Right?

“You want a snack, Taemin-ah?” Kibum says. “It’s okay, it’s not like you gain weight. What does your mom usually make for you?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Taemin heads straight for their room and doesn’t stop until he’s faceplanted in the pillow. Kibum doesn’t stop either, because he’s Kibum. As soon as the door snicks open again Taemin knows it’s him. If it were Jonghyun, he’d be climbing in next to Taemin, rolling him over, trying everything until something found its way in. Kibum stands there and stares.

“You don’t want to talk to me?”

In his voice, Taemin can hear his arms crossing, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t want to talk, hyung.”

“Look at me, at least.”

There’s no reason not to. It’s not like Taemin is about to cry again or something. He cried so much already it’ll take him years to build up tears again, and there’s nothing to cry about.

Really.

When Taemin rolls into the open he finds Kibum holding his phone out.

He sits up so fast he hits his head on Jonghyun’s bunk, hard enough that his vision splits and there are two Kibums clicking their tongues at him, reaching out to rub at Taemin’s scalp, hand as warm and gentle as his voice is sharp.

“You aren’t even going to ask where I found it?” and, “You should have told me it was missing,” and, “Why did you go to Jonghyun hyung first? He can’t even keep track of his own things.”

If Jonghyun had told him Taemin cried, Kibum probably would have acted like Jonghyun made him somehow. Something so close to a smile is forcing its way onto Taemin’s face, but when he bites it back, telling Kibum, “I didn’t mean to tell him, it just came out,” Kibum rewards him by taking Taemin’s wrist and pressing his phone into his hand.

“You’re a weird kid, you know that?”

“Mm.”

For one long moment Taemin watches as his expression teeters on the edge of another explosion like this morning, halfway between laughing and yelling, but in the end he slumps down next to Taemin on the edge of the mattress.

“Don’t hide that kind of thing, Taemin-ah,” he says. “If you can’t even ask for help with stupid shit like this, you know how worried that makes me? You can’t handle everything by yourself.” Taemin isn’t giving him any kind of look, but something in his face has him sighing and shaking his head and telling Taemin helplessly, “I’m only hard on you when someone has to be, otherwise I don’t have the energy. Really. Just look at you.”

It won’t hurt Taemin to admit it, and maybe it’ll help Kibum. “I wasn’t mad at you. I was mad at myself.”

Kibum nods, like he figured.

“Because you know you can do better.” He holds Taemin’s eyes. “So do it.”

Maybe the problem isn’t Taemin’s brain, it’s his heart. Jinki told him once that if he worked hard enough he could go to a SKY university, but that would mean putting more of himself into studying than he has to give. Even in the worst parts of training or promotions, when he was out of his mind with nerves or so tired he kept blacking out, when his whole body hurt or it was hard to even breathe, he never felt that sick awful feeling he gets every morning when Minsoo hyung drops him off at school. And none of that numbed him from the inside out, the way sitting at a desk for even half a day does. The way today did. He made himself go, but that’s all.

“I can’t make myself work hard when I don’t care, hyung,” Taemin says. “And I can’t make myself care about things I don’t care about.”

Kibum’s mouth presses into one long thin line, but not before Taemin catches the corners of it twitching up. Taemin didn’t say anything funny or cute or whatever he thinks. It’s the truth.

“Honestly, Minho was right. I don’t know what it’s like, and I have it way easier than you two. But that doesn’t mean I was wrong about anything, either.” Kibum reaches up to pet Taemin’s hair, hand so big and warm, as careful as the others’ are clumsy. “Just because we’re at SM doesn’t mean things will last forever, Taemin-ah, and even you’ll get old someday. You need a backup plan so you can support yourself.”

Kibum is the one who auditioned like ten times to get into SM. He said he would do anything, say anything, tried all kinds of crazy stuff, that to get the judges to see anything in him, he had to get them to look at him and see him at all. After how hard he’s worked, how long he trained, how hard he fought to debut, how can he still be planning for things not working out? Just the thought of the end, of having to do something, anything else, makes Taemin’s heart grind to a stop. But all that means is that it’s good Kibum has done all his thinking for him.

It’s good he has Kibum.

“As long as I don’t fail, that’s good enough, right?” Taemin says.

Kibum’s expression flickers, but this time laughter wins out again. It almost always does.

“Aigooooo.” Kibum stands, swatting him on the butt on his way out. “Call your mom before you lose your phone again.”

Taemin’s heart is in his throat by the time he presses it to his ear, but she picks up on the first ring.

“Taemin-ah?”

_Mom._

They talk about everything and nothing. Dad’s boss made him go drinking again and he bought a lottery ticket when Mom sent him to the store, and he always wants the same thing for dinner these days. Taewoo won a photography competition at school. The air conditioner crapped out again, but Mom thinks Taemin’s money is too precious to spend on replacing it, even when Taemin tells her he’s getting paid again soon. Jinki thinks Taemin grew a little taller. He plays soccer with Minho sometimes, but when they go on break, that’s probably all Minho will want to do. Ahjumma’s food is good, but not as good as hers. Which reminds him. She can’t see the heat climbing in his face, and no one could see his heart fluttering, but when he asks her if she could make the banchan Jonghyun wanted, he can hear her beaming in his ear.

“What about the others?” she says.

“Jinki hyung and Minho hyung eat anything.”

“And Kibummie?” she presses him. “The last time I saw him he said he likes anything, too, but he looks like he’s pickier than that. His mom is too far away in Daegu to bring him food.”

Taemin never thought of that. He was always worried about the others eating his food before he got any, but after months of their fridge being crammed with tupperware with their names scribbled over them, he can’t remember one that said “Kibum.” And just like that, his heart hurts.

Still… “If I ask about stuff like that he’ll think it’s weird.”

“Why would he think that? Taemin-ah~” Mom sighs in his ear and Taemin’s face flushes again, this time from shame. “When he came to see you that one time, he asked how I seasoned my dried pollock. That probably means he liked it, right?”

Wait, what?

“When was that?”

“Last year sometime. You were off somewhere with Jonginnie.”

“And he ate dinner with you?” Taemin says. Kibum never even mentioned it.

“I asked him to stay,” Mom says. She hesitates, few seconds silence that echo inside Taemin weirdly, like another heartbeat. “He was your same age when he started living away from home, Taemin-ah, and Minsoo-ssi wasn’t there to look after him.” Or Jonghyun, or Jinki or Minho. Or Kibum himself. “Think of how lonely he must have been.”

He told Taemin he gave his own phone back to his parents when they debuted, too, that it was too expensive to risk getting confiscated. Taemin took his for granted for so long he forgot where it was, and once he lost it, he could barely go one day without crying his eyes out. When he goes back out to the living room, Kibum is sitting on the couch like any other day, fighting with Minho for the remote and fighting with Jonghyun for the other half of his seat, since Jonghyun’s legs are so short he doesn’t need it to stretch out. How long has it been since he talked to his mom?

Part of Taemin wants to go back into their room until he feels normal again, but his feet are already carrying him over to the others. When he wedges himself between Kibum and Jonghyun, Kibum makes room for him, crushing Jinki instead, and Jonghyun draws his legs up, then props his feet on Taemin’s lap. Taemin’s brain blinks.

“Hyung.”

“Mm,” Jonghyun and Kibum both grunt.

“Kibum hyung.” It’s going to sound weird no matter what, so Taemin just says it. “Do you like dried pollock?”

Kibum shoots him a sideways glance like he’s crazy. “What kind of question is that?”

The kind that gets no answer. If he hated it, he would have said so. Right?

“Hyung.”

Kibum’s eyes stay fixed on the TV this time. “What now?”

“Was your old dorm worse than this one?”

“I shared one bathroom with my whole floor, what do you think?”

Jonghyun and Jinki both laugh, then laugh harder when Minho says, “There must have been a line ten people long when you finally finished in there.”

That’s not what Taemin meant, though. Sharing the bathroom sucks, but so does going to bed at night and lying there and wondering if your family is lying there too, listening to the rain same as you. And in Daegu, they probably aren’t, they’re far enough away that they get Seoul’s weather a day later, or Seoul gets theirs, or however it works. But at least here, in this room with all five of them, Kibum won’t be left with silence. Jonghyun tosses and turns, Jinki rolls, sometimes Minho lets out a snore, and Jonghyun keeps saying Taemin breathes funny.

“It’s less weird for you now, too, right?”

Less lonely.

“I don’t know, there were fewer people asking me annoying questions back there,” Kibum says. “What’s got into you?”

Taemin only realizes he’s smiling when Kibum smiles back. He fights it the whole way, but he can’t help it. He never can.

“Do you really not hate being called mom?” Taemin says.

“I’ve been called worse things,” Kibum says. “Just be grateful they didn’t give you a dad, too. There’re no good options.”

Taemin is the only one who laughs this time, even when Jonghyun’s heel digs into his thigh, sending his heart lurching in his chest. He hates the family concept more than Taemin even, what does he care?

“Hyung.”

Kibum’s smiling again. “You better mean someone else.”

“Hyung~”

“Ah, whaaaaaat~”

Nothing. Everything.

“I’m hungry.”

“Now you want a snack. Now that I’d have to get up.” All Taemin has to do is wait him out, and sure enough, five seconds later: “Zucchini or kimchi pancake, those are your only two choices.”

Taemin doesn’t care, either one.

Kibum makes both.

Taemin eats so much he falls asleep right away that night, and in the morning, he checks for his phone again, in the smallest pocket of his bag, safe from all his books. And the next few days are all the same, school, practice, sleep, until finally the last bell rings on Saturday. Summer break. No more school, not for a month. Taemin can practice all day now, sleep as late as the hyungs, watch TV and read manhwa and just _breathe._ Maybe he can see Jongin. Maybe even Mom and Dad and Taewoo.

Minsoo hyung doesn’t ask this time either, but before Taemin can say anything, he takes the turn towards SM again.

“We’re not going home?” Taemin says stupidly.

“I didn’t tell you this morning?” Minsoo hyung shifts in his seat, taking his eyes off the crawling traffic to give him half a glance. “SM set up a meeting for today.”

Taemin’s own body is telling him the answer, this weird flying-falling feeling, stomach opening up, heart squeezing in on itself, mouth gone dry, but he still has to ask: “About what?”

“Your comeback.”

“Replay” came out in May, and now it’s July. Promotions ended last week, and they won’t start up again for another month at least, but they have to record and learn new choreography and practice and practice and practice. They have a new song Taemin has never heard, but it’ll become his life.

Taemin’s phone is still in his bag.


End file.
